May 9th, 2013 at 12:49 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – President Obama, Congressman David Cicilline and other Democrats were propelled to victory last November by a surge in voting by Hispanic and black Rhode Islanders as well as a sharp drop in participation among white citizens, a WPRI.com analysis of new Census data shows.
March 25th, 2013 at 9:45 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Rhode Island’s 2011 voter ID law was a hot topic on the campaign trail in some General Assembly races last fall, with Democrats in liberal districts saying they got an earful about the need to repeal it. House Speaker Gordon Fox has promised to consider the issue this session.
The strange spectacle of a heavily Democratic legislature implementing a policy that’s usually pushed by conservative Republicans raised eyebrows at The New Republic and deeply dismayed many local liberals. But should they rethink their opposition to voter ID?
Michael Waldman, president of NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, seems to think so – and his voice will carry weight, considering the Brennan Center is one of the nation’s most prominent voting-rights organizations. In the new issue of the influential progressive journal Democracy, Waldman pushes for an aggressive agenda – and tells his political allies they should look to Rhode Island for a model:
Progressives will need to do much better, too, at making clear our commitment to election integrity. …
[P]rogressives look Pollyannaish if we belittle concerns about election integrity. After all, politicians have been trying to stuff the ballot box since senators wore togas. It was progressive reformers who fought for decades to improve the honesty and integrity of elections. …
I believe progressives must take one more step. We should unambiguously embrace an election-integrity agenda that protects against genuine risks without disenfranchising legitimate voters. The Republican demand for voter-ID laws is not the problem per se. The problem comes from laws requiring ID that many people do not have. About 11 percent of voters lack a driver’s license or another current government photo ID. Rhode Island, in contrast to the stricter ID laws conservatives favor, passed a law that accepts nongovernmental ID such as insurance cards, credit or debit cards, even health-club cards. This approach has caused little disenfranchisement or fraud.
Rhode Island’s law is being phased in, with some forms of non-photo ID still allowed this year. Photo IDs – though not necessarily government-issued ones – will be required at the polls starting next year. A bill to repeal voter ID [pdf] was considered by the House Judiciary Committee last week.
• Related: Is RI’s new voter ID law just an ‘oddity’ – or a ‘game changer’? (July 28, 2011)
November 18th, 2012 at 5:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
November 8th, 2012 at 11:18 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
First they took away our exit polls, and now they’re insulting us about it.
Michael Calderone reports for The Huffington Post (emphasis added):
NBC elections director Sheldon Gawiser, who has worked on every presidential contest since 1976, said the network-AP consortium has made some changes this cycle in exit polling, given increased early voting and a focus on battleground states.
For instance, given the huge percentage of early voting in Colorado and Oregon, executives saw less reason to have someone asking questions on the ground at polling sites in those states. While there will be full exit polling in Massachusetts, given its highly competitive Senate race, other states not believed to be in contention for the presidential race will not have such extensive exit polls.
“Why should I put a lot of resources in Utah or Vermont or Rhode Island?” Gawiser asked, adding that the consortium has “put our resources where the stories are and where the states are most important.”
The lack of a Rhode Island exit poll means there is no snapshot available of who exactly went to vote in the state on Tuesday – by gender, race, income, party or anything else – leaving a major hole in our understanding of this year’s results.
• Related: Chart: How many people vote in RI elections, and who they are (Nov. 6)
November 6th, 2012 at 4:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Who’s going to vote today? The answer could decide (among other things) whether Rhode Island’s 1st District sends Congressman Cicilline or Congressman Doherty to Washington come January.
Rhode Island’s last general election was on Nov. 2, 2010, but the electorate that casts ballots today will look more like the one that went to the polls four years ago, on Nov. 4, 2008, because turnout is always higher in presidential years than in midterm/gubernatorial ones.
Here’s the data on Rhode Island turnout, as compiled by WPRI 12 political analyst Joe Fleming:
The first question is, will Rhode Island voter turnout stay at the 67% level reached in 2008, or will it fall back to the 61% level seen in the 2004 and 2000 elections? Those six percentage points might not sound like much, but they’d be the difference between 447,513 and 491,531 votes – about 44,000 ballots, more than enough to swing a close race; Cicilline beat John Loughlin by 9,727 in 2010.
The next question: who exactly will those 447,000 to 491,000 voters be?
As Yogi Berra once remarked, it’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future. But we can take a look at Rhode Island’s last two presidential electorates and get a sense of who’s going to show up tomorrow.
A few things seem highly likely: more women will show up at the polls than men; about one in five voters will be young; Democrats and independents will vastly outnumber Republicans. But will the share of non-white voters jump again? Will Democrats top 40%?
The answers won’t be known until after Tuesday. (Actually, they won’t be known at all – Rhode Island’s exit poll was canceled to save money.) But here’s a look at who voted in 2004 and 2008 so you can see trends:
July 11th, 2012 at 8:44 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – The R.I. Board of Elections may reclassify Rhode Island voters’ phone numbers and email addresses as confidential information after a New Hampshire politician who supports killing police officers published them online.
March 13th, 2012 at 2:49 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Gov. Lincoln Chafee is pretty tough on his former compatriots in the Republican Party these days. But he still has a few things in common with them.
Chafee is the only governor in the United States who signed a voter ID bill into law last year who wasn’t a Republican, The Washington Post reported Tuesday after the Obama administration blocked a new law in Texas that would require voters to show photo identification to cast a ballot.
The U.S. Justice Department does not have the legal authority to block Rhode Island’s law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, but The Post reported federal lawyers could try to do so under a different provision of the 1965 legislation. Democratic governors vetoed voter ID laws in at least five other states last year.
“Having reflected a great deal on the issue, I believe that requiring identification at the polling place is a reasonable request to ensure the accuracy and integrity of our elections,” Chafee said after signing the bill behind closed doors last July, adding that minority lawmakers’ arguments for it were “particularly compelling.”
Chafee left the Republican Party in 2007 and won the governor’s office as an independent three years later.
• Related: New Republic piece puzzles out why RI passed a voter ID law (Feb. 7)
February 10th, 2012 at 1:49 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Rhode Island’s public-sector unions are expected to try and defeat some of the dozens of Democrats who voted for last year’s pension law in the September primary. But State Rep. Jon Brien, one of the most conservative members of the House Democratic caucus, has filed a bill he hopes will help protect his colleagues.
Brien’s legislation would allow independent voters who join a party solely in order to cast a primary ballot to leave the party right after they vote. Right now, they stay listed as a member of the party whose primary they voted in for 90 days after the election.
“They don’t want to be a part of a party,” Brien, D-Woonsocket, told WPRI.com. “When you’re knocking on doors, people are skittish. The thing that I hear the most out there is, ‘I don’t like to show my hand.’ No one wants to show who they belong to. … It’s really creating open primaries.”
“I can go out there and say to all my unaffiliated voters, ‘You’ve got to come vote for me in the primary, and as soon as you disaffiliate, you’re done,’” Brien said. “That takes away the edge that the unions have had, where they’ve beaten a David Caprio or a Doug Gablinske or a Mary Shallcross Smith as a punishment for votes.”
The bill – which was drafted incorrectly [pdf] and will be replaced by a “Sub A” – has a hearing Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee. Brien said he’s discussed it with Speaker Gordon Fox, “and he thought it was a very worthy idea.” (A spokesman for Fox was not immediately available.) Other bill sponsors include Reps. Michael Marcello, Lisa Baldelli-Hunt and Donald Lally.
Update: Larry Berman, a spokesman for Fox, said it’s possible the speaker will back Brien’s legislation.
“Speaker Fox shares Representative Brien’s belief we should encourage people to actively participate in all aspects of government, particularly voting,” Berman told WPRI.com. “If this bill makes people more likely to vote in the primary then that is a positive step in increasing citizen participation. The speaker will consider all testimony submitted at the committee hearing and make a determination on how to proceed.”
February 7th, 2012 at 10:24 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
The pension overhaul wasn’t the only surprising-for-a-blue-state policy Rhode Island enacted in 2011. Another that passed to liberals’ dismay was the new law requiring that voters show an ID before they cast a ballot.
The New Republic’s Simon van Zuylen-Wood, who graduated from Brown last year, returned to Rhode Island recently in an effort to answer the question that headlines his new article, out today: “Why Did Liberal African-Americans in Rhode Island Help Pass a Voter ID Law?”
Here’s an excerpt:
Whether minority legislators voted for voter ID in good faith, or to disenfranchise ethnic rivals, the law effectively contributes to the state’s increasingly conservative slant. More important, Rhode Island’s poor, elderly, and minority citizens risk losing their vote when the law takes effect in 2014. And while Rhode Island’s law is actually more lenient than those passed in other states, and was not part of the centralized Republican push to move such bills through state legislatures, it may have more staying power.
Read the whole story here. (Full disclosure: Simon interviewed me as he prepared his story.) The best quote comes from State Rep. Anastasia Williams, D-Providence, who tells TNR she noticed one particular case of voter fraud because the alleged perpetrator “was a hottie.”
• Related: Is RI’s new voter ID law just an ‘oddity’ – or a ‘game changer’? (July 28)
October 5th, 2011 at 6:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
The pool of potential Hispanic voters in Rhode Island is growing at a fast clip while the number of white voters is shrinking, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Rhode Island’s Hispanic voting-age population grew by 13,000 from November 2008 to November 2010, raising the total number to 84,000, Census estimates show.
By contrast, the population of white voting-age Rhode Islanders dropped by 20,000 over the same period, falling to 649,000. That figure excludes Hispanics.
Hispanic Rhode Islanders are far less likely to be registered to vote than their whites neighbors, however, with only 24% of eligible Hispanics registered compared with 71% of non-Hispanic whites, the Census said.
The report also showed last fall’s midterm election drew relatively few young residents and Hispanic citizens to the polls in Rhode Island.
September 28th, 2011 at 1:19 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
Last November’s midterm elections drew 46.7% of Rhode Island citizens over the age of 18 to the polls, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday.
That’s the lowest midterm election turnout in Rhode Island since comparable Census records begin in 1986, and way down from the 58.8% turnout in 2006, a year that included the hard-fought U.S. Senate race between Lincoln Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse.
It’s also down from the 67.4% of Rhode Island citizens 18 and older who voted in the 2008 election, which is less surprising since presidential years usually see a big surge in voter turnout.
Voter turnout in November 2010 ranged from over 55% in Maine and Washington to under 40% in Texas, with Massachusetts’ turnout at 52.2%, the Census said.
“The most common reason people did not vote was they were too busy (27%),” the Census said in a news release. “Another 16% felt that their vote would not make a difference.”
Hispanics made up 7% of voters nationwide in 2010, up from 6% in 2006, while black voters’ share rose from 11% to 12%.
December 29th, 2010 at 12:45 pm by Ted Nesi under General Talk
The Rhode Island Board of Elections is gearing up to spend some money on new voting machines – but taxpayers won’t have to pay for nearly as many if lawmakers lift the cap they’ve put on the size of polling precincts.
Right now, state law requires that each polling place serve no more than 1,900 voters – but school gyms, the most common voting venue, could handle thousands more than that. Robert Kando, the election board’s executive director, tells me a bill will be introduced in the new General Assembly session to eliminate the mandate.
Based on the 1,900 limit, the board will need to lease 650 machines to have enough for all 550 or so precincts, plus backups in case some of them break down, at an estimated cost of $1.25 million a year. But that amount could be reduced if lawmakers allow larger polling places.
The savings wouldn’t stop there, either, Kando says. Fewer precincts means fewer deliveries of ballots and machines; fewer poll workers to be trained and paid; fewer technicians to fix broken machines, plus less maintenance; and fewer police officers to check in on polling days.
Cities and towns have to pay for many of those costs, even though precinct sizes are set by the state. ”By having fewer precincts, it has a dramatic effect on the savings for the state of Rhode Island and for the local communities,” he said.
Kando also thinks this would be a particularly good time to make the change since the state will also be embarking on redistricting now that we have the latest U.S. Census population numbers.
This sounds pretty sensible to me – but if you think otherwise, leave your counterargument in the comments section.
October 21st, 2010 at 7:00 am by Ted Nesi under News and Politics
The hard-fought race for governor may be keeping political junkies on the edge of our seats, but it didn’t lead to high demand for absentee ballots.
The secretary of state’s office tells me Rhode Island voters requested 10,658 mail ballots ahead of last week’s deadline – down 22% from the 13,686 requested in 2006. Spokesman Chris Barnett said “2006 to 2010 is an apples-to-apples comparison because the general offices [governor, lieutenant governor, etc.] are on the ballot” in both years; in 2008, a presidential election year, 21,598 mail ballots were requested.
Why the drop from 2006 to 2010? Barnett declined to speculate, but I can think of a couple potential explanations.
Rhode Island was a U.S. Senate battleground in 2006 – first when Lincoln Chafee faced Steve Laffey in the Republican primary, then when Chafee took on Sheldon Whitehouse in the general – and that race’s publicity combined with Democrats’ anti-Bush enthusiasm may have boosted the number. A more depressing explanation could be that fewer people will be away on business trips or vacations this year because of the weak economy.
Miss the deadline for a mail ballot but can’t make it on Nov. 2? You can still apply for an emergency mail ballot.
September 13th, 2010 at 11:24 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Answer: Almost certainly. The real question is, who and how many?
I took a look at the potential for voter turnout to play a decisive role in tomorrow’s primaries for Congress, mayor and other offices in a new story on WPRI.com:
Fewer than 120,000 of Rhode Island’s 702,000 registered voters are likely to cast a ballot on Tuesday, with under 100,000 in the Democratic primary and under 20,000 in the Republican one, according to Eyewitness News political analyst Joe Fleming.
If Fleming’s prediction is correct, statewide voter turnout on Tuesday would be around 17 percent. “I do not see a very high turnout in Tuesday’s primary,” he said.
Later on in the piece, I noted something that has always fascinated me – the sometimes incredibly-small number of voters who back the winner in a hard-fought, low-turnout election. I used the example of Myrth York in 2002, which was actually a relatively good year for primary turnout:
York won that contest, which showed just how few voters it can take to win a primary even when turnout is relatively robust. She received 46,806 votes, only 926 more than Whitehouse.
Since a total of 600,996 voters were eligible to cast a ballot in the primary that year – 240,959 Democrats and 360,037 independents – that meant York emerged victorious with the support of just 8 percent of eligible voters.