By JOSEPH B. NADEAU

PROVIDENCE — It came down to a lottery, but Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis said he has set the order in which candidates will appear on the ballot for the upcoming state Senate District 20 Democratic primary.

State Rep. Roger Picard of Woonsocket will head the ballot as a result of the lottery and will be followed on the listing by Thomas Scully, a former Cumberland School Committee and Town Council member and Woonsocket Attorney Rosina Hunt, respectively.
The three Democrats completed the declaration and nomination process to qualify for a March 18 primary for the seat long held by Woonsocket Democratic Roger R. Badeau.
Badeau, chairman of the Committee on Labor, died in office on Jan. 25. He was first elected to the Senate in 1984 after the late state Sen. Alphonse F. Auclair chose not to seek re-election to the then Dist. 32, Woonsocket and Cumberland, seat that year. Badeau topped Wilfred L. Godin, running as a Republican, for the seat in the Nov. 6, 1984, District 32 election.
The district was renamed District 20 when the General Assembly completed redistricting in 2004. 
State law gives the Secretary of State the authority to set the election calendar and hold lotteries to determine ballot placement for special primary elections and special elections under certain circumstances, Mollis said in a statement issued Friday.
“Badeau’s death last month with most of the final year of his term left to serve is one of the triggers in the law,” Mollis said.
Mollis said he held the lottery for the ballot placement at his office in Providence with Hunt present.
Since only three Democrats completed the
See SENATE, Page A-2
declaration and nomination process means that the winner of the primary would appear on the April 22 special election ballot without a challenger, Mollis noted.
The state’s election system does allow for write-in candidates to be named on a ballot in addition to those formerly listed by the Secretary of State, but full-fledged campaign efforts to run in that manner are rare.
Information on voting requirements and state election schedules is available on the Secretary of State Web site www.sec.state.ri.us.