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. 

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.