KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Dec. 17, 2025 \u2013 In Rhode Island, candidates seeking elective office, either for the first time or as incumbents, have to go door to door asking residents for signatures or host \u201csignature parties\u201d to get placed on local and statewide ballots for an upcoming election. Such a process can take weeks and several campaign volunteers to get their preferred candidate on a path to the general election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recent 溏心vlog免费B站 Master of Public Administration graduate Dennis Haggerty \u201923, MPA \u201925 offered an alternative way to improve funding for election administration in the state, and as an additional benefit, allows for more candidates to achieve ballot access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haggerty recently presented the idea at the Innovative Election Administration Funding Solutions Symposium, held by the Auburn University Institute for Election Administration Research & Practice and the Election Center (National Association of Election Officials). The event welcomed secretaries of state from around the United States and showcased innovative funding proposals from 10 individuals, including Haggerty. The challenge was designed to encourage creative thinking and collaboration in developing new approaches to election funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haggerty, who was a poll worker in South Kingstown during the 2024 election cycle, proposed creating a Ballot Qualification Fee Program and Election Administration Improvement Fund to finance Rhode Island\u2019s election administration infrastructure. The proposal, which Haggerty developed with assistance from Rhode Island Deputy Secretary of State Rob Rock \u201905, MPA \u201914, would offer election candidates the option to pay a fee to get on a ballot in lieu of collecting signatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haggerty says the requirement would allow candidates to pay a fee tied to a certain percentage of their salaries to gain ballot access. As a result, it opens the door for more candidates for voters to choose from during election season and helps those who struggle to connect with voters on the campaign trail, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI would love to make this idea part of my advocacy to improve local elections and lobby the Rhode Island General Assembly to take up this initiative,\u201d Haggerty said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a pleasure working with Dennis on his submission to the Auburn Election Contest. Dennis provided a well-researched, thoughtful proposal that helps solve a concern of all election administrators\u2014elections funding,\u201d Rock said. \u201cIt is creative ideas like these that election administrators around the country can use to improve elections administration in their jurisdictions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haggerty says the money from the fees would be collected by the Rhode Island Secretary of State\u2019s office and spent where necessary. Ideally, the funding would help support various election costs such as voting equipment, cybersecurity to protect election integrity and training for poll workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haggerty\u2019s analysis suggests that Rhode Island would have collected approximately $619,000 through four election cycles if all candidates paid a 3% fee based on their salaries. He also says the funds collected from the fees would help fill gaps as a result of declining federal investment in programs such as the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing less federal investment, so we need that independent predictable stream of revenue for something like a Ballot Qualification Fee program to keep making those important upgrades in voting equipment and cybersecurity,\u201d Haggerty said. \u201cWe got $3.2 million in HAVA funding in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we got $1 million in each election cycle in 2022, 2023 and 2024. This year, there was a huge dip in funding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haggerty and the other presenters were judged by an expert panel at the conference on which five proposals would receive a monetary award. While Haggerty\u2019s idea fell just shy of the top five, it will be featured in Journal of Election Administration<\/em>, introducing his idea to a broader national audience of election experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDennis Haggerty’s participation in this national competition is another example of the impact our students are having on the dialogue over election integrity and administration,\u201d said Aaron Ley<\/a>, associate professor and MPA program director in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Department of Political Science<\/a>. \u201cIt demonstrates how our nationally accredited program brings together talented students, dedicated faculty support, and engaged alumni to create meaningful experiential opportunities that raise the national profile of our program and prepare students for effective public service leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Dec. 17, 2025 \u2013 In Rhode Island, candidates seeking elective office, either for the first time or as incumbents, have to go door to door asking residents for signatures or host \u201csignature parties\u201d to get placed on local and statewide ballots for an upcoming election. Such a process can take weeks and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":105988,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,1914,1905],"class_list":["post-105985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-graduate","tag-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105987,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105985\/revisions\/105987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}