BY ANDREA MORELL

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island -

Campaigners for James Harris and Laura Garza were notified September 12 by the Rhode Island Director of Elections that the Socialist Workers petitions fell short of the 1,000 registered voters' names required to place the socialist presidential ticket on the ballot in that state. Only 672 of the 1,942 names submitted were ruled valid by officials.

At a hearing before the State Board of Elections September 16, New England Young Socialists leader Ryan Kelly argued that an affront to democratic rights had occurred when the petition signatures of nearly 2,000 Rhode Islanders favoring ballot status for the socialists were brushed aside.

Paul Hubbard, one of three Rhode Island electors for the socialist ticket, stated, "We have been on the ballot here many times in the past. We always collected 2,000 signatures and we always got on with that."

SWP presidential candidates were last on the Rhode Island ballot in 1988. With the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), campaign supporters overcame state officials' attempt that time to deny James Warren and Kathleen Michaels ballot status on a bogus objection to one of their electors.

Among other reasons, Kelly and Hubbard demanded the Board place the Harris-Garza ticket on the ballot because the signatures of 192 students at Brown University had been arbitrarily invalidated on the grounds that their school post office boxes are not addresses.

"Obviously, a post office box is an address. It's where we get our mail. It's our address," commented Ryan Martin later. Martin is a Brown University student who is looking forward to hearing Garza when she speaks in Providence September 20. The Board finally agreed to review the signatures of the students who listed their post office addresses.

Kelly and Hubbard also protested the fact that the socialists were given only three days-two of them Saturday and Sunday- to prepare their appeal to the board. In response the chairman stated, "We all run on a very tight schedule."

In further controversy surrounding the State Board of Elections, the ACLU won a law suit against the Board a week earlier for its failure to implement the National Voter Registration Act, known as the "motor voter law." Since the law went into effect in Rhode Island Jan. 1, 1995, state officials have willfully obstructed voter registration and must now carry out the court's order to organize a media campaign informing people of how they can register to vote before the election November 5.

The Socialist Workers will hold a press conference here September 20, featuring Garza, to press the fight for ballot status. Campaign supporters are organizing other activities in the city, including a meeting with Brown University students.  
 
 
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