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January 10, 2008

13 presidential candidates make it to R.I. primary ballot

Thirteen presidential candidates will be on Rhode Island’s March 4 primary ballot, the final slate for that contest, Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis announced today.

Today was the deadline for the secretary of state’s office to certify that candidates had collected the signatures of at least 1,000 eligible Rhode Island voters to qualify for the primary.

“One sign that Rhode Islanders are taking this primary very seriously is the number of signatures they submitted. In 2004, only President Bush collected more than 2,000. This year, seven candidates exceeded that mark,” said Mollis. “We certified more than 25,000 signatures in all.”

Hillary Clinton had 2,902 certified signatures. John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Barack Obama will be on the Democratic ballot as well.

Republican Ron Paul led all candidates with 3,109 certified signatures. Hugh Cort, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Alan Keyes, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson will also be on the GOP ballot.

Hunter and Keyes broke through the 1,000-certified-signature requirement today to become last two candidates to qualify to run in the primary.

See the full list of numbers here.

Twenty people had filed candidacy declarations with the secretary of state. But Democrats Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Republican Tom Tancredo withdrew from the race. Others, such as Democrat Bill Richardson -- who withdrew form the national race today -- did not get enough certified signatures to make the ballot.

On Feb. 1, Mollis will hold a public lottery at the State House to figure out the order in which candidates' names appear on the ballots.

The question remains which of the 13 will still be in the race by the time the R.I. primary rolls around.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 6:09 PM | Permalink

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