Rhode Island ranked in top 6 in running efficient elections
Last week’s presidential primary day in Rhode Island was undoubtedly anticlimactic. We already knew that President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump had clinched their party’s respective nominations, so the results in the Ocean State and Connecticut, New York, and Wisconsin hardly sent shockwaves through the country.
Still, it’s a good moment to highlight that Rhode Island does, in fact, run pretty efficient elections. MIT’s Elections Performance Index ranked the state No. 6 in the country for the 2022 election.
What goes into such a ranking? MIT considered a wide range of factors – voter turnout and registration, overall electoral infrastructure, and the administration of in-person and mail ballot voting – in every state, and only New Mexico, Michigan, Colorado, Vermont, and Nebraska came out ahead of Rhode Island. Some of the findings are really wonky, but here are a few Rhode Island highlights:
• The state had a 86 percent voter registration rate – better than the national average – but its 43.87 percent turnout rate was slightly lower than average.
• Rhode Island’s registration rejection rate was less than 1 percent, compared to the national average of 6.39 percent.
• Only 1.49 percent of mail ballots were unreturned, compared to 14.49 percent nationally.
• The average in-person voting waiting time was 2.6 minutes, compared to 5 minutes nationally.
This is a big improvement for Rhode Island, which ranked No. 33 in 2014 before Nellie Gorbea was elected secretary of state (she left office after the 2022 election). She spearheaded several changes that helped Rhode Island dramatically shoot up the charts.