Rhode Island
Ballot Security
What Politicians Say
Spurred by the success of temporary changes made during the coronavirus pandemic, Rhode Island made voting dramatically easier following the 2020 elections.
In 2022, Democratic Governor Dan McKee signed the Let RI Vote Act, a major overhaul of election laws backed by a coalition of voting rights groups that made permanent the state’s experiment with no-excuse vote-by-mail.
The law also dropped a requirement that mail ballots be signed by two witnesses or a notary public, requires each municipality to provide ballot drop boxes and creates an online option to request a mail ballot.
Under the law, residents of nursing homes will also be allowed to sign up to automatically receive mail-in ballot applications each election, though they will still have to fill it out each time.
Ease of Voting
The law also extends the deadline by three weeks for blind or visually impaired voters to request a Braille ballot.
Ballot Security
The law also requires the secretary of state to use the US Postal Service change-of-address database to update voter rolls at least four times a year. Previously, that was only done every other year.
The secretary of state’s office will also now use a Social Security database to check for voters who have died.
Under the law, the website to request a mail ballot will check voter IDs by asking for date of birth and a Rhode Island driver’s license number or other state identification number.
Paper ballot applications will still require a signature that is compared with the voter registration card on file.
How Politicians Responded to the 2020 Election
All of Rhode Island’s top officials and members of Congress are Democrats, and believe that Biden’s election was fairly won.