By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — With the 2008 General Assembly session dwindling down to its final days and most lawmakers focused on the budget, which will get a vote in the House of Representatives tonight, Gov. Donald Carcieri joined a group of Republican legislators to tout a pair of election-related bills that are likely doomed in the Democrat-controlled legislature.

Carcieri called a Statehouse press conference Tuesday to throw his weight behind GOP-sponsored measures that would eliminate “straight-ticket” voting and that would require voters to present a photo ID to prove they are who they say they are when they show up at the polls.
The governor said the photo ID legislation would “curb voter fraud” and “safeguard the integrity of our elections, making it “a crucial part of election reform.”
“What is the downside of making sure everyone who votes is eligible to vote?” Carcieri asked rhetorically.
Although advocates for immigrant and minority groups have been among the most vocal opponents of voter ID laws, and Carcieri has already aroused the ire of that faction with an executive order that, among other things, encourages law enforcement to work with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) in identifying and reporting illegal aliens who commit crimes, the governor insisted Tuesday that “this has nothing to do with immigration at all.
“For every person whom we allow to vote who shouldn’t be voting, we’re disenfranchising those” who should be, said Rep. Nicholas Gorham, a Coventry Republican. “We have to protect those who vote validly by making sure that those who shouldn’t be voting don’t.”
The second bill would put a non-binding referendum on the November ballot asking whether voters wanted to put an end to “straight-ticket” voting, where voters fill in one arrow at the top of their paper ballot to vote for all of the candidates from a single party.
Only 17 states still use straight-party voting, Carcieri told reporters, and “eliminating straight-party voting will encourage voters to do their homework, consider candidates more carefully and make informed decisions. Doing away with straight-ticket voting will give all candidates a fair chance.”
Allowing voters to cast one vote for a single party for all offices is largely seen to benefit Democrats in one of the most Democratic states in the union.
Republican Sen. June Gibbs of Middletown, sponsor of the straight-ticket bill, said that when the state still used the mechanical voting machines with a “master lever,” that cast votes for a single party in all races,  “You could see every person you voted for and every person you didn’t vote for.” That is not the case, she said, with the present day ballots where voters make a single mark that is then read by a computerized scanning machine.
Gibbs said statistics also show that people who vote a straight-party ticket are less likely to vote in non-partisan races, as many communities have for school committees and other offices.
“We’ve had the master lever for so long in Rhode Island, can’t we just try one election without it?” Gorham asked. “How much would it hurt to not have it for one election? I can’t see the harm.”
Secretary of State Ralph Mollis at first held back on making a legislative recommendation on Voter ID legislation because its constitutionality was being considered in the U.S. Supreme Court. Subsequently, the high court ruled that a Voter ID requirement in Indiana was constitutional.
In the light of that court decision, Mollis spokesman Chris Barnett said, the secretary of state’s Voters First Advisory Commission, which originally passed on making a recommendation on Voter ID, “will take up Voter ID and other issues with one eye toward making recommendations for the 2009 legislative session.”
On the straight-ticket issue, Barnett said Mollis feels, “Given that 20 percent of November 2006 voters used the master lever, we know a significant number of voters value the opportunity to vote straight party.” But, he added, having a non-binding referendum to allow voters to have their say would be a “more empowering policy” than to have the General Assembly ban the practice outright.”