PROVIDENCE, R.I. (March 8, 2008) —Rhode Islanders responded to Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis’ voter education campaign by visiting his website in heavy numbers in the days leading up to last Tuesday’s presidential primary.
The Secretary of State's Voter Information Center (VIC) registered more than 176,234 page views following the Feb. 26 launch of a PR campaign to encourage voters to check their polling place and their voter registration information online.
Mollis launched the campaign after a surge in voter registrations and mail ballot requests led him to project a record 200,000 Rhode Islanders would vote – five times the turnout for the 2004 presidential primary. As it was, Rhode Islanders surprised even Mollis with more than 213,000 going to the polls March 4.
The voter education campaign also addressed another issue -- the state Board of Elections and municipal elections officials had set the number of polling places at 177, 90 fewer than the 2004 presidential primary. Mollis urged people to use his website to confirm the location of their polling place and their party affiliation so they would not run into problems when they went to vote.
“The primary went smoothly for most of the 213,000 Rhode Islanders who voted on Tuesday. To have so few problems on a day when voters turned out in record numbers indicates many were well prepared,” said Mollis.
The statistic on page views came from ri.gov, which provides online services in partnership with state government. Anticipating heavy traffic once the PR campaign was in full swing, Mollis shifted his Voter Information Center web pages to ri.gov’s more powerful server March 1.
To put the VIC traffic in perspective, ri.gov's home page got just 37,520 page views during the same time period -- an indication that Rhode Islanders were going directly to the VIC using the URL -- www.sec.state.ri.us/vic/ -- that was prominently promoted in the voter education campaign. The 176,324 VIC page views represented 26 percent of ri.gov's total page views from March 1-4.
Secretary of State Mollis is committed to making it easier for Rhode Islanders to vote, helping businesses grow and making government more open and accessible. To register to vote or to check your voter registration information, visit www.sec.state.ri.us.
CHRIS BARNETT 222-4293