Opinion/DePetro: Many reasons to question integrity of RI elections

John DePetro is a Rhode Island radio talk-show host.

I was appalled at the amount of misinformation put forth in the piece “Rhode Islanders should trust integrity of elections” by Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea and R.I. Board of Elections Chairwoman Diane Mederos (Commentary, May 4).

It should not be lost on any voter that they repeatedly use the phrase “eligible Rhode Islander” instead of every “citizen” of Rhode Island. The difference? Our state has many residents who are not citizens but live in Rhode Island and consider themselves “Rhode Islanders.”

Secretary Gorbea left out of her column an important date, August of 2017, when her office (without notice or legislation) removed the birthday of every voter on the voter role leaving simply the year. The fact is it is much harder to cross reference if John Smith born in 1980 of Cranston is the same John Smith born 1980 of Johnston. It would be much easier to track if there were 100 babies born on July 1, 1980 named John Smith.

Gorbea and Mederos don’t mention how in most states ballot harvesting (third party handling) is illegal, but legal in Rhode Island. The dangers of ballot harvesting were best illustrated in the 2016 election when House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello announced on election night that he won by “over 500 mail ballots.”

The second example is the 2017 special election in Newport for the state Senate seat of M. Teresa Paiva Weed, when a campaign worker went out, collected and notarized 230 mail ballots (votes) and was paid $4,000. She was not paid to collect ballots, she was paid to collect votes. There is nothing stopping campaign workers from collecting thousands of votes.

They mention “the legal penalties for voter fraud and voter impersonation are severe,” yet the Board of Elections will tell you that in the last 25 years not one person has been charged or convicted for committing perjury while registering to vote. Not one in 25 years.

The reason? There is no mechanism to check or verify the information. Signature verification? The letter “X” is an acceptable signature. How can you tell one X from another X? It was reported three individuals recently were flagged for reportedly voting twice in 2020 — but it was Florida and Illinois who caught them, not Rhode Island.

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It should also be noted they write “we review the cases and when necessary, refer them to legal authorities for investigation and potential prosecution.” They are not detectives. Why are they deciding which cases get looked into?

The threat to our democracy is the secrecy of the voter rolls, ability for anyone to register to vote and “mail ballots” (drop box votes) which undermines our system.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Opinion/DePetro: Many reasons to question integrity of RI elections