To vote in the RI Democratic Presidential Preference Primary this Tuesday, you must be registered in Rhode Island as a Democrat or "unaffiliated" (the voter registration and the party disaffiliation deadlines have passed to be eligible for Tuesday's vote). If you are unaffiliated you will be automatically registered as a Democrat when you vote, though you can sign a form to disaffiliate again as you leave the polling place.
Polls open between 7am and 9am (Noon on Block Island!)
depending on location (find your
polling place here) and close at 9pm. If you are in line at a polling place at 9pm you will be allowed to vote.
When you get into the voting booth you have to draw a line to connect the partial arrow next to the candidate of your choice. IN ADDITION to selecting the candidate, you can choose up to 7 delegates from the delegate list under your candidate's name. (see a
sample ballot here [pdf]) The delegates are the people who will go to the National Convention in Boston and cast a vote for the candidate they appear under during the nominating process.
Rhode Island will send 32 delegates to the National Convention, 21 of which will be determined by the March 2nd election. Delegates are allocated proportionally to all candidates who receive 15% of the popular vote or more, by district (RI has
two Congressional Districts.)
That sounds kinda convoluted, so here's a hypothetical example:
After the returns are in, John Kerry wins 55% of the vote, Edwards has 20% and Dean gets 15%. Everyone else receives less than 10%. Taking those who finished with 15% or more of the vote, you get 90% of the vote, and RI allocates 21 delegates, so Kerry gets (55/90)*21= 12.83, Edwards (20/90)*21= 4.67 and Dean gets 15/90)*21= 3.5, so the final allocation would be Kerry 13 delegates, Edwards 5 and Dean 3, for a total of 21. The delegates are chosen by you when you vote.
The top 13 Kerry delegate vote-getters will get a ticket to the convention, and so on. Interestingly, Kerry only has 10 delegates on the ballot (including former Providence Mayor Joe Paolino), and Edwards only has 5 (actually, he had to fight to get on the ballot after initially coming up a few signatures short of qualifying). Dean has 25 candidates for delegate, so in my example the top 3 vote getters among those delegates would go to the convention (if you're planning on voting for Dean in CD 2, I'd like to recommend selecting Jordan Jacobs for delegate).
Notable names on the delegate slate include former Congressman Bob Weygand (for Edwards), Democrat Gubenatorial adversaries Myrth York and Sheldon Whitehouse (both Dean). former Lt Governor Richard Licht (Kerry) and Frank Caprio, State Senator and son of RI's most famous cable access Judge (wow, no links for Caught in Providence on Google?!)
The Providence Journal is of course the place to get your news on the RI primary, and there's an excellent collection of stories and links at their
election page.
That should be all you need to know. Go vote!
Why are the times changed to central?! All of your readers are on eastern, change it back!
I just found out where the polling location is for my address.
I get to walk across the park across the street from my apt. to the boathouse on the Paxtuxet River to vote. Total commute time, less than 1 minute! Living in Pawtuxet is cool! I can walk to almost anything I need! Even to vote!