How to recast Rhode Island’s reputation as a flyover state and increase turnout in presidential primary elections? Vote earlier.
Newly approved legislation sent to Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s desk on Tuesday shifts the state’s 2028 presidential primary from late April to the first Tuesday in March, dubbed “Super Tuesday” because of the date’s popularity among states.
Fifteen states, including every other New England state except New Hampshire, held their 2024 primaries on Super Tuesday, determining one-third of all delegates sent to presidential nominating conventions.
By joining them, Rhode Island makes its presidential selection more relevant and interesting – to candidates who might make a campaign stop in the state, and to voters who want to feel their choices truly matter in the outcome, said Liz Beretta-Perik, chair of the Rhode Island Democratic Party.
“In previous primaries, most presidential candidates do not visit Rhode Island because they have previously visited New England states for Super Tuesday, and by the end of April, the presidential primary candidate has essentially been nominated,” Beretta-Perik wrote in a Feb. 5 letter to lawmakers, backing the bill sponsored by Rep. Joe McNamara, a Warwick Democrat and previous state party chair.
By the time Rhode Island held its 2024 presidential preference primary, Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump had already secured the delegates needed to earn their party’s nomination. Which could explain why just 5% of registered Rhode Island voters cast ballots in the April 2 primary, compared with 65% who participated in the November general election, said Hugh Moren, election administrator for the city of Newport.
“The practice of Rhode Island holding its primary election so late in the cycle effectively diminishes Rhode Islanders’ voices and, in some cases, wholly eliminates their ability to have a say in the party’s presidential nominee,” Moren wrote in a Feb. 4 letter to lawmakers.
The Rhode Island Board of Elections also backed the date change, as did Republican GOP Chair Allyn Meyers.
“For too long, Rhode Island’s late primary has rendered us an afterthought in presidential politics,” Meyers said in an emailed response on Wednesday. “By joining Super Tuesday, we would immediately become relevant and draw national attention to Rhode Island as candidates compete for our 19 delegates.”
Meyers also pointed to increased investment, including signature collection and advertising, from national campaigns.
McNamara’s bill and its Senate companion, sponsored by fellow Warwick Democrat Matthew LaMountain, passed unanimously in both chambers.
McKee’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday on whether he intends to sign the bill. But, McKee was unable to name any legislation he had in mind to veto when asked at an unrelated event Friday.
The shift in election calendar tradition is not exclusive to the presidential preference primary. Earlier in the session, the General Assembly agreed to move the date of the state’s September 2026 primary back one day, to Wednesday, Sept. 9, to give election workers more time to prepare after the Labor Day holiday.
Policy reforms proved less successful this year. The push for a constitutional amendment to allow same-day voter registration, a recurrent priority for Common Cause Rhode Island, was again left to languish in legislative committees after initial hearings in February.
John Marion, executive director for Common Cause, said the good government group didn’t devote much time to same-day voter registration this year, instead concentrating its advocacy efforts on what he viewed as a more critical policy change: a state Voting Rights Act.
Despite widespread and legislative public support, the measure to enshrine voter access and equality in state law was also left on the cutting room floor. Three days before the end of the session, legislative leaders announced that they would not be advancing the bills without enough time to resolve legal concerns before the session ended.
Marion remained disappointed by the decision, which he considered an antidote to recent dismantling of federal voting protections for minority voters.
“Our thinking really hasn’t changed, that it was something they should have done before they went home given all the national threats and the erosion of the federal Voting Rights Act,” Marion said in an interview Wednesday. “We’re going to continue working on it with the goal of getting it done in 2027. Federally, the voting rights act is all but dead.”
Secretary of State Gregg Amore also fell short in his proposal to create an online portal for voters to sign candidates’ nomination papers, which aimed to reduce the forgery concerns of recent election cycles and ease the burden on local election administrators. For the second year in a row, the bill passed in the House in April, but never advanced out of the Senate Committee on Judiciary.
Some chamber members were worried about how the portal, the first of its kind in the country, would work, said Greg Pare, a spokesperson for Senate President Valarie Lawson.
“At this point, that want to see how it plays out in other states that may choose to enact this policy,” Pare said in an email on Wednesday.
Amore said he was disappointed the bill did not pass, but acknowledged that technology and policy changes take time to achieve.
“I remain confident that Rhode Island is well-positioned to lead in the nation on innovative ways to involve our citizens in our democracy like this,” Amore said in an email Thursday. “Offering this new method of signature collection, in addition to the existing paper process, will make the process more accessible to voters who might otherwise not be afforded the opportunity to participate, as well as increase the speed with which canvassers can process nomination papers. I look forward to continuing to educate candidates and the public about my proposal, and working with the General Assembly to introduce the legislation again in the future.”
Other election-related measures that passed in 2026 include:
- Making permanent the existing provisions to let disabled, military and overseas voters cast ballots electronically. The initial 2022 policy expired at the end of 2025.
- Letting candidates use campaign funds for home and office security.
- Preventing federal immigration authorities from coming within 200 feet of a polling place.
- Requiring the state elections board publish all write-in votes, including vote totals, on its website.
- Reducing the number of signatures required for party delegates to make the ballot from 150 to 50, and changing deadlines for delegate nomination papers to be submitted and verified by local boards of canvassers ahead of a presidential preference primary.
Nancy Lavin is a senior staff writer for the Rhode Island Current.
