Rhode Island requires candidates running in a presidential primary to submit 1,000 signatures. On June 22, the legislature passed H6229/S765. That bill eases the deadline to submit the signatures from December of the year before the election, to mid-January of the election year. Also, it says that the signatures are presumed to be valid, unless someone challenges them. Challengers have only one day to file the challenge. The Secretary of State had asked for this bill to bring the state into compliance with Democratic National Committee rules. The Democratic National Committee rules won’t recognize presidential primaries (except in New Hampshire and South Carolina) if candidates are required to file in the year before the election.

Other election law bills of interest failed to pass, and the Rhode Island legislature has now adjourned. They include the National Popular Vote bill, a bill to ease the definition of “political party”, a bill to study Instant-Runoff Voting, a bill to let the voters decide on whether to eliminate straight-ticket devices, and a bill to move the presidential primary from March to February.

Another bill that failed to make any headway would have injured write-in voting. H6017 would have provided that write-ins should no longer be counted, unless the vote-counting computer showed that there were more write-ins cast than the number of votes cast for any particular ballot-listed candidate in that race.