Saturday voting proposed

Rhode Island voters would be able to cast their ballots on Saturdays, under a package of reform legislation Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis has submitted to the General Assembly.
The Saturday-voting bill would give voters a second day to go to the polls, in addition to the traditional Tuesday. The legislation would require cities and towns to open their polls on the Saturday prior to a Tuesday election. Municipalities would decide how many polling places to open and what hours to be open on Saturdays.
“Saturday elections will take the pressure off business owners who struggle with employees’ need for flexibility on Election Day,” Mollis said in a prepared statement.
Chris Barnett, spokesman for Mollis, told the Providence Business News that the new law would apply to all federal, state and local elections, even special elections. If the bill passes, Saturday polling would take place for the Nov. 4 election that includes the contest for president, Barnett said.
Mollis in November took advantage of a rare Saturday special election in Lincoln to poll voters on their reaction to casting ballots on what for many people is a day off. Ninety-five percent of voters with an opinion on the issue said they liked the opportunity to vote on Saturday.
The secretary of state’s seven-point legislative package also includes bills that would: strengthen the no-canvassing zone around polls; increase voting booth privacy; clean up the state’s voter rolls to more efficiently purge names of the deceased; and prohibit Rhode Islanders from registering to vote from more than one address.
Mollis said the legislation stems from a series of public hearings and nationwide research conducted by his Voters First Advisory Commission. The report of the nonpartisan 10-member commission has been posted on the secretary of state’s Web site, www.sec.state.ri.us.
The commission will continue its work, Mollis said, addressing such issues as improving voter-registration security and developing a voter identification system to protect against fraud. &#8226