BY JIM BARON

Local boards of canvassers say there have been few changes in polling places in recent years, and when voters have been moved to a new venue, they have been notified by mail and in newspaper advertisements and Web site postings.

So voting officials polled by The Call say they see no need to notify every individual voter in their respective communities about where to vote in November, as the American Civil Liberties Union and Common Cause have asked canvassing boards across the state to do.
In a letter to boards of canvassers across the state, Common Cause and the ACLU said, “the reality is that thousands of residents” may not have voted since the last Presidential election four years ago, “and they will not be aware of any polling changes that have taken place since that time.”
The groups urged the BOCs to “take steps to individually notify voters of their polling place location by sending out postcards with this information before the upcoming election.
“To the extent this is deemed too costly or otherwise burdensome,” the groups suggested, “we would encourage at a minimum that you send notices to those voters whose polling location has changed since the 2004 elections.”
See POLLS, Page A-2
“We can’t send out 23,000 postcards,” said Woonsocket Registrar Linda Fontaine, saying such a step would be cost-prohibitive.
She said voters can call the board on or before Election Day, and noted an advertisement listing polling places appears in The Call.
“There haven’t been any changes in a while,” Fontaine said, and when there have been changes, “everybody got a letter.”
Pawtucket Registrar Kenneth McGill agreed that sending a card or letter to every voter in the city would be too expensive. “We don’t have the money to do that with the financial crisis,” he said.
If a polling place gets moved, McGill said, voters in that area are notified by mail, even if the change is for someone else.
For instance, he said, in response to a request from the state Board of Elections that communities not have two different voting districts at a single polling place, they city decided to move one of the two sites at the Euart VFW Post on Overland Ave. Not only were voters who were being moved to a polling place on Smithfield Avenue notified, but to avoid confusion voters who will be staying at Euart were notified as well.
McGill said there is a link on the City of Pawtucket’s web site to the Secretary of State’s web site where people can enter their name and address to find their correct polling place.
“My polling places are always the same,” said Central Falls Registrar Gertrude Chartier, largely because there are only so many spots in the city that would make appropriate voting sites. Once they are established, she said, polling places stay put.
The only recent change, she said, is when 3 new spots were identified in response to the Board of Elections request that municipalities not double up on polling places. Three new sites were identified, and affected voters were notified by mail at the time.
She said the city notifies voters of polling places with advertisements in The Times and in the Spanish language newspaper Nuevo Horizantes.
Lincoln Town Clerk Karen Allen said the town would not be sending out postcards to all voters. Besides the cost involved, she said, “we’re not required to do that, we are required to notify when we change polling places and we notify all voters.
All of the voting officials say there are few with any problems in their communities with people showing up at the wrong place to vote.
“We don’t have any problem,’ Central Falls’ Chartier said. “I don’t even recall one telephone call (in the recent primary) about people showing up at the wrong place.”
A person who goes to an incorrect polling place has the right to cast a provisional ballot, the ACLU and Common Cause noted in their letter to the canvassers. They also noted that, under current state Board of Elections’ regulations, qualified voters who cast such a ballot in their city or town will have only their votes for federal offices counted. Their votes on statewide elections, statewide referenda, and city or town-wide elections and referenda are all thrown out, even when there is no question about their qualifications and residence in the municipality where the ballot was cast.
As a result of this policy, the letter noted, potentially thousands of voters who go to the wrong polling place in their community in November will find most of their votes disqualified, with potentially significant consequences.
In last month’s primary there was a tie vote in Cumberland that took weeks to straighten out and two General Assembly races are still being contested in court.