Rhode Island
Divided Board of Elections backs proposal to let voters drop off mail ballots earlier – Rhode Island Current
A seemingly innocuous proposal to let voters drop off their mail ballots earlier has divided Rhode Island elections administrators.
The Rhode Island Board of Elections (BOE) on Thursday narrowly backed a proposal to let voters deposit ballots in state-certified, secure drop boxes 35 days prior to Election Day. The 3-2 vote serves as a recommendation, requiring legislation and approval by the Rhode Island General Assembly, to amend existing law, which says drop boxes stationed outside city and town halls must stay locked until 20 days prior to an election.
The vote came after nearly an hour of discussion and debate, clouded with questions over logistics, and the specter of public doubt over election integrity.
Chair Jennie Johnson, along with members David Sholes and Marcela Betancur, supported the earlier opening. Board members Randy Jackvony and Michael Connors opposed the earlier opening date.
Proponents including the Rhode Island Department of State, local boards of canvassers and the Rhode Island Town and City Clerks’ Association backed the change as a way to make voting easier and more convenient for voters eager to exercise their civic duty.
“Voters love to use the drop box,” said Kathy Placencia, elections director for the Department of State.
An earlier opening date also allows drop boxes to be used for voter registration forms, which are due 30 days before an election. Typically, city and town halls have to open their offices on the Sunday registration deadline to accept registration forms from stragglers.
But some BOE members hesitated, concerned about confusion created by combining registration forms and mail ballots in the same collection box. Not to be discounted: public trust in election safety and security, which has taken a hit nationwide.
“There is a lot of distrust in elections around mail ballots already,” said Michael Connors, a board member who also serves on the three-member legislative subcommittee. The subcommittee on Feb. 20 voted 2-1 not to support a change in drop box opening dates.
Even Miguel Nunez, BOE deputy director (who will take the helm as executive director next week), acknowledged the solution was imperfect.
Identical legislation was submitted last year on behalf of the state elections board, and approved by both chambers, but was pulled at the eleventh hour due to conflicts with local special elections.
There is a lot of distrust in elections around mail ballots already.
– Michael Connors, a Board of Elections member who opposed to the earlier start for opening drop boxes
Existing state law requires local boards of canvassers to lock drop boxes at 8 p.m. on Election Day, the same time polls closed. When a special election is held a month before a regular state or federal election, the earlier drop box opening might overlap with a time when the drop box has to be locked for a local election.
Nunez presented BOE members with a few options to minimize this conflict. They included getting rid of the requirement that local elections administrators lock the drop box when polls close. Or keeping the 8 p.m. locking time but reopening the drop box the next morning. A third option: opening drop boxes 30 or 32 days prior to the election, rather than 35.
Board member Sholes also suggested another hack to assuage concerns about ballot confusion: color-coded ballots to make it easier for local election workers to differentiate between special, local races and state or federal ones.
‘Can of worms’
But the multitude of Band-Aid fixes suggested to Jackvony that perhaps the best solution was no change at all.
“I think we’re opening up a can of worms,” Jackvony said. “We’re very concerned about giving people a positive sense of the integrity of elections. I think we’re going in the wrong direction with something like this.”
“Very few” mail ballot applications get sent out by the Secretary of State’s office 35 days before an election, Nunez said.
But the handful of voters who want to turn in mail ballots early would benefit by opening up the drop boxes, which are already paid for, under surveillance, and otherwise sitting empty, said Nick Lima, Cranston elections director and chairperson for the Rhode Island Town and City Clerks’ Association Elections Committee.
Lima has heard from a few Cranston voters who already received their mail ballots for the upcoming April 2 presidential preference primary but can’t drop off their ballots in the drop boxes until March 13, based on the 20-day opening date.
“That voter will show up at City Hall at 4:35 p.m. today with that mail ballot in-hand and have nowhere to drop it,” Lima said.
Meanwhile, the city of Cranston is spending $2,000 across its four special elections this year to pay its staff to sit in City Hall on the Sunday when voter registration forms are due, Lima said. That cost could be eliminated if voters could drop their registration paperwork in a secure container.
“It’s a large expense for us, and it really isn’t a necessity,” said Lima, adding he “never” sees city voters dropping off registration forms on that final Sunday deadline.
The proposed changes in drop box openings was one of 25 election-related bills considered by the BOE Thursday, ranging from repealing constitutional requirements for 30-day residency prior to voting, to the maximum number of voters a single polling place can serve.
The drop box legislation has not been introduced yet, but must be submitted by Feb. 29 to be considered by the General Assembly.
Board members Diane Mederos and Louis DeSimone did not attend the meeting.
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Rhode Island
R.I. House Finance budget phases in millionaires tax over three years – The Boston Globe
In January, Governor Daniel J. McKee touched off a debate about a millionaires tax by proposing a state budget that would impose a 8.99 percent tax rate on personal income of more than $1 million — a 3 percentage point increase over the current top bracket that would have generated $67 million in fiscal year 2027.
The House Finance budget would phase in that millionaires tax by raising that top rate by 1 percentage point per year over three years — 6.99 percent for tax year 2027, 7.99 percent in 2028, and 8.99 percent for 2029. The move would generate an estimated $22 million in 2027, $68 million in 2028, $115 million in 2029, and $142 million in 2030.
Blazejewski said phasing in the millionaires tax will help Rhode Island deal with federal funding cuts as they take effect in the years ahead. Advocates see that tax as a crucial source of funding for essential programs amid federal cuts, he noted, while opponents predict it will hurt small businesses and drive away rich residents.
“We thought this strikes the right balance here for our state, given the situation we’re in with the federal government,” Blazejewski said. “We think this is a prudent way of increasing revenue over time, and then phasing it in, so it has less shock, it has more time to be absorbed, and then also comes online exactly when we need it.”
Rhode Island is pursuing a millionaires tax three years after Massachusetts imposed a 4 percent millionaires tax on top of its 5 percent income tax, raising billions in revenue. On May 25, the Globe reported that the Massachusetts surtax on that state’s highest earners has already generated more than $3.1 billion in revenue this fiscal year, with two months remaining — surpassing the $2.4 billion projected.
Inspector general
The House Finance budget includes $1.3 million to fund an independent inspector general’s office staffed with 12 full-time employees who will investigate waste, fraud, and abuse in state government.
Blazejewski called for creating an inspector general’s office soon after becoming House speaker on May 7. The move by the state’s most progressive House speaker came as a surprise to some because Republicans have long made the inspector general’s office a top legislative priority.
But Blazejewski noted he introduced inspector general legislation in 2015. On Friday, he said the federal government is cutting funding at the same time the state has seen “high-profile state failures” such as the closure of the Washington Bridge westbound and the botched rollout of a $99 million state payroll system.
McKee and Republican lieutenant governor candidate John J. Loughlin II questioned why Blazejewski wants the inspector general to oversee the executive branch — but not the Legislature.
On Friday, Blazejewski noted that voters approved a separation of powers amendment to the state Constitution in 2004 to ensure the three branches of government are separate and distinct, and that the inspector general’s office would be an administrative agency of the executive branch.
“If you allow the executive office to run roughshod over the Legislature, the judiciary, you no longer have three branches of government,” Blazejewski said. “It’s not original to Rhode Island. It’s a fundamental principle of government.“
RIDOT audit
The budget includes an audit of maintenance work by the state Department of Transportation. “We just have had too many high-profile failures, and we need to conduct an audit as to the maintenance program,” Blazejewski said.
The budget also removes the Department of Transportation director as chairman of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. Former DOT director Peter Alviti Jr. began serving as chairman of the bus agency’s board in 2023. But Blazejewski said, “We just think it’s a conflict of interest.” The DOT director can continue to serve on the board, but not as chairman, he said.
No line-item veto
The House Finance budget rejects McKee’s call for placing a constitutional amendment on the November ballot asking voters to give the governor line-item veto power, which would allow him to strike specific items from the budget without having to approve or veto the entire bill.
Last year, McKee refused to sign the state budget approved by the General Assembly because it raised taxes and fees, but he did not veto the bill. And McKee noted that 43 other states have some form of line-item veto authority.
But Blazejewski said, “That line item veto is about changing the power structure between the governor and the General Assembly,” and the current process works with the governor proposing a budget and legislators passing a budget. Other states have had “issues” with the line item veto, he said, noting Wisconsin’s governor used that power to delete words, numbers, and punctuation from a bill to change its meaning.
Budget exceeds $15 billion
The budget totals a record $15.2 billion for the fiscal year that starts July 1, marking an increase over the $14.859 billion proposed by McKee.
In August, the business-backed Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council warned that the state’s rate of spending was not sustainable. And in the Republican response to McKee’s State of the State, House Minority Leader Michael W. Chippendale said the state budget has grown by 200 percent since 2000, when it was about $4.5 billion.
URI medical school funding
The House Finance budget includes $5 million as an initial investment in creating a medical school at the University of Rhode Island.
The Senate had included that proposal in a 17-bill package aimed at strengthening the state’s strained health care system. Blazejewski said the medical school will help alleviate the state’s severe shortage of primary care doctors in the future.
Tax on Social Security
The House Finance budget includes the first year of McKee’s proposal to eliminate state personal income taxes on Social Security benefits over three years.
Under current law, taxpayers who have reached full Social Security retirement age (67 or older) and have incomes of less than $107,000 for single filers, or $133,750 for joint filers, are exempt from state income tax on Social Security income. The House agreed to eliminate the current minimum age threshold.
Child tax credit
The House Finance budget does not adopt McKee’s proposal to replace an existing tax deduction for dependents with a new child tax credit that would refund families $325 on their taxes per child, per year.
But it does build on the existing tax deduction structure and adds a $330 child tax credit to help lower income families. Blazejewski said the new system “costs a little bit more but gives even more of a benefit to families in Rhode Island.”
Bond questions
The budget includes a record $600 million in bond questions on the November ballot, but it modifies some of the proposals in McKee’s budget.
- Blazejewski said McKee’s budget “underfunded” an integrated health building at URI. So the budget provides $275 million (rather than $215 million) for the state’s three colleges, including $165 million (rather than $105 million) for the URI building, $50 million to renovate Rhode Island College’s Adams Library; and $60 million for a workforce innovation center at the Community College of Rhode Island.
- $120 million for housing, including $25 million for producing housing units for homeownership.
- $100 million (rather than $115 million) for economic development, including $55 million (rather than $70 million) for site development at the Quonset Business Park and I-195 District.
- $50 million for the “cultural economy,” including $45 million for a State History Center that would display the state’s founding documents.
- $55 million for “green economy bonds.” Blazejewski said, “Our caucus spoke over and over about making the green bond greener, and we’ve done just that.“
- The House budget eliminated the $50 million McKee proposed for Career and Technical Education. Blazejewski said testimony indicated the proposal was underfunded even at $50 million, “so we’re going to go back to the drawing board.”
Energy proposals
The House Finance budget adopts some, but not all, of McKee’s proposals for lowering energy bills.
House Majority Whip Katherine S. Kazarian, an East Providence Democrat, said the budget expands the renewable energy standard to including hydro and nuclear energy, which will result in savings.
But she said the budget would reject McKee’s plan to push back the 2033 deadline to reach 100 percent renewable energy sources for state electricity until 2050. “We’re going to continue to keep that 2033 deadline, which is really important to our caucus and, frankly, to the renewable energy investments that have come to the state,” she said.
Central Falls schools
The budget returns the Central Falls school district to local control after 35 years of state control. Blazejewski said this was a priority of Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera.
Domestic violence calendar
The House budget includes $600,000 to hire three full-time employees and create a domestic violence calendar in state Superior Court to address a backlog of 1,200 felony domestic violence cases.
The House Finance Committee voted 11 to 2 to send the budget to the House floor for a vote next Friday, June 5.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — Health professionals are warning Rhode Islanders to look out for a fast-moving threat in the brush this summer: the Lone star tick.
NBC 10’s Martha Konstandinidis went out to see the increase in ticks firsthand and has some simple steps to protect your family.
(WJAR) — The Rhode Island House has passed a Bill that offers a rare alternative when considering end-of-life options: water cremation and human composting.
These processes are actually considered better for the environment.
Instead of being rooted in flames during cremation, remains are placed in water and no greenhouse gases are released.
Tom Harries, CEO of Earth Funeral – Green Funeral Home, explains the natural organic reduction also known as human composting, process while standing in front of an actual vessel in the warehouse during a tour at their new location, which will open in Elkridge. Eventually it will house 126 vessels. Jeffrey F. Bill/Baltimore Sun)
Last year NBC 10 was able to get a first-hand look into how it works.
The John F. Tierney Funeral Home in Connecticut became one of the first in Southern New England to offer water cremation or “Aquamation” for humans.
Remains are placed into a machine, and water begins to circulate, leaving bone material behind.
Human composting uses fertile soil to break down remains.
Lawmakers on both sides spoke before the vote.
It passed 47-17.
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It now heads to the Senate.
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