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March 4, 2008

Primary: Voting rolls along, though not without problems

High voter turnout and an influx of new polling place staffers has ensured that just a few hours after voting began, so did the problems.

But the process is rolling along. And some voters who have not been discouraged by the setbacks are working with state and local officials to set things right before the polls close at 9 tonight.

Lori Dorsey almost didn’t vote this morning. She said it’s because she has a disability.

With high voter turnout for today's primary, lines are long at many polling places.

Dorsey, a 53-year-old social worker, has a back problem and can’t stand for long periods of time without support. But when she asked for a chair at her polling place, the Shriners Hall in Cranston, she said she was told she’d have to come back later.

Dorsey, who said she works two jobs, said several workers all but ignored her request and she almost left.

“I thought, ‘What am I thinking?’ ” She wondered if she was being turned away, what was happening to elderly voters, or others who were more easily discouraged.

“I had to rant and rave and scream and threaten,” she said.

Ultimately, it was the threat to reach out to a television reporter, she said, that got her a chair. Then she contacted the state Board of Elections.

Miguel Nunez, program specialist at Board, said he told Dorsey that “she should be accommodated.”

He said a representative from the city’s Board of Canvassers would go speak to the staffers at Hall and make sure they knew that voters with special needs have a right to be accommodated.

Constance Campana went to vote at the Church of the Redeemer on Providence’s East Side this morning. She said she had to wait about 40 minutes because staffers were missing some voter registration information.

First, she said, the staffers told her she was in the wrong place. Then, she said, they needed to use her mobile phone to reach the city’s Board of Canvassers to verify her information.

Laurence Flynn, executive director of the Providence Board of Canvassers, says the missing pages were sent to the church and the problem has been fixed.

-- projo.com staff writer Brandie M. Jefferson

Posted by Brandie Jefferson  at 9:42 AM | Permalink

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G Dog | March 4, 2008 9:56 AM link

karen anne | March 4, 2008 10:41 AM link

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