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March 4, 2008

Primary: State officials tour polling places

Secretary of State Ralph Mollis and his director of communications Chris Barnett, as well as several other staff members have been visiting polling places across the state today and they say one thing is clear.

“Poll workers are uniformly reporting some of the heaviest turnout they’ve ever seen,” Barnett said.

There have not been widespread or recurring problems, he said, but there have been minor glitches at different polling places, particularly in the morning, including a name left off of the registration roll or a malfunctioning voting machine.

The Secretary of State is operating a voter information hot line at 1-877-Go2 Vote (1-877-462-8683).

The Providence Journal has fielded a handful of calls from residents with problems ranging from not immediately having disabilities accommodation, to several voters saying they had disaffiliated, but when they showed up to vote today, were given a Democratic or Republican ballot.

Check your voter registration and affiliation status online.

Barnett said he had heard of a few such instances, and said people may have forgotten to disaffiliate after switching parties to vote in the 2006 general election.

In either case, if a voter believes there’s an error in his or her affiliation, or is not showing on registration rolls, residents can always cast a provisional ballot, which can be added to the count once registration information is verified.

Barnett said he’s been out since 8:30 this morning and plans to keep it up until the polls close at 9 p.m. Then he and Mollis will head back to the Secretary of State’s office, where the counting begins.

The office is still expecting to begin announcing results at about 9:15 tonight.

For more information about today's primary, visit projo.com's politics section.

-- projo.com staff writer Brandie M. Jefferson

Posted by Brandie Jefferson  at 3:35 PM | Permalink

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