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Rhode Island
Same-Day Voter Registration campaign seeks to increase voting access in R.I. – The Brown Daily Herald
Last month, the Rhode Island Voting Access Coalition held a rally for its Let RI Vote for Same-Day Voter Registration campaign. Over 33 community groups and several state officials were in attendance, including Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D), Sen. Alana DiMario (D-North Kingstown, Narragansett, New Shoreham) and Rep. Karen Alzate (D-Pawtucket, Central Falls), according to a press release from Common Cause Rhode Island.
The campaign, led by Common Cause, is a part of broader efforts to increase voting access in Rhode Island. The state is one of 15 with a voter registration policy requiring residents to register to vote 30 days before an election. In R.I. same-day voter registration is only available for presidential elections.
According to John Marion, executive director of Common Cause, Rhode Island is also one of few states to codify their registration deadline in the state constitution.
“We see it as one of the last remaining large, structural barriers to increased (voter) participation,” Marion said. “We’re trying to position this as the most important democracy issue in (the state) right now.”
The campaign “is trying to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would allow for same-day voter registration,” he added.
The Voting Access Coalition is also led by a steering committee that includes community groups like Service Employees International Union and Planned Parenthood.
In their own fight for reproductive health, the organization recognizes that their goals can only be achieved “with the complete participation of everyone,” said Vimala Phongsavanh, a senior director of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, in an interview with The Herald.
According to Alex Moore, political director of SEIU District 1199 New England, barriers to voting disproportionately affect renters and people experiencing housing instability, which tend to be younger, of color and from low-income backgrounds.
“The neighborhood I grew up in was largely (Laotian), and a lot of folks were getting their citizenship but not registering to vote,” Phongsavanh said. “Refugee communities like mine are harder (to register in) because most of them don’t speak English and … people don’t think it’s worth the investment” to register, as it’s a very small community.”
University organizations like Brown Votes have also highlighted the importance of same-day voter registration, specifically for students. Brown Votes member Logan Tullai ’25 said that “the 30-day restriction is very narrow, especially for first-year students arriving on campus” in an interview with The Herald.
“It’s also important for US citizens living abroad who are now going to school in Rhode Island … as well as the veteran population on campus” to have access to same-day voter registration, Tullai added. Brown Votes testified at the Rhode Island State House last spring for an earlier iteration of the campaign, The Herald previously reported.
According to a poll commissioned by partners of the Let RI Vote campaign, 61% of Rhode Islanders support same-day voter registration. A study by the University of Massachusetts Amherst also found that Black and Latinx voter turnout increased by 2-17 percentage points in states with same-day registration.
Although there is no organized opposition to the campaign at the moment, the Republican caucus feels “that this is a completely unnecessary move,” said House Minority Leader Michael Chippendale (R-Coventry, Foster, Glocester) in an interview with The Herald.
Chippendale added that because information about elections and voter registration is available well in advance, prospective voters should also be prepared and informed before election day. “All rights come with responsibilities,” he said.
But Phongsavanh believes that navigating the voting process can be difficult given different cultural backgrounds. When she ran for Woonsocket’s school committee in 2009, she and her father managed to register over 100 new voters, she shared. “People were excited (to vote), but this voting thing was new to them … and (some people) couldn’t because of this deadline we had,” she explained.
For the time being, addressing the amendment is not a priority for the Republican caucus. “Same-day voter registration is not even on our map,” said Chippendale. “We will not be discussing it until the day the vote comes.”
According to Marion, there’s still a long road ahead of the campaign. Once the change is introduced, the coalition will prepare for a hearing and lobby with legislative committees. If all goes according to plan, the constitutional amendment will appear on the ballot come November.
“Everybody’s optimistic that their bill is going to pass in January,” said Marion. “It’s when you get to June that you really find out what the obstacles are.”
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Megan Chan
Megan is a Senior Staff Writer covering community and activism in Providence. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she spends her free time drinking coffee and wishing she was Meg Ryan in a Nora Ephron movie.
New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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