You do not need to be a registered Republican voter to sign a ballot. You simply have to be a US citizen, 18 or over, a legal resident of Rhode Island, and most importantly, a registered voter.

Andrew,

He needed signatures from valid RI voters. He probably received 1,500 signatures but many were probably invalidated for one reason or another.

I'm surprised his team did not have a voter list provided by the Secretary of State so that they could verify the signatures.

Most candidates that did make it on the ballot got double the amount needed to qualify simply because many people who claim to be registered voters are not.

Will and Don are correct. Any voter registered in RI could have signed those nomination papers.

What I find amazing is that they didn't sit down and check the signatures before returning them.

For my race in Cranston (for District 14 Representative), I had to collect 50 signatures from registered voters who live in the district. Two days before they were due, we sat down and counted them while checking against the list provided by the board of canvassers. Since we seemed to have only about 50 valid signatures at that point, we collected more just to be safe. (I have 78 valid signatures as of 4pm today.)

How someone could spend the time and money entering the race and then not be sure that they have collected enough signatures is beyond me. I won't complain, though, because I'm a Carcieri supporter!

Dennis, we hardly knew ye!

I have some blank ballots here. If anyone cares, the ballots say: "Each of the signers of this paper by so signing severally certifies that he or she is a voter in the area from and for which the above named candidates seek to be elected."

In other words, Rhode Island voters...

For it to be a valid signature, it needs to be from a registered voter signed on the sheet for the town in which they are registered to vote in.

As for Michaud ... At the Bristol 4th of July Parade, while myself and others worked the Carcieri for Governor table gathering signatures, handing out info & bumper stickers, Michaud and his wife (I assume) approached us at the table and seemed completely oblivious as to why we were asking for signatures. When we asked about his signatures, he said he had already gotten his. Hard to believe since the papers were only handed out late on the day before, I believe, and this was about 9:30AM or so.

Michaud was kind enough to sign the Governors sheet that day!

Good Riddance!
Now we can hope that the other straw man who is (while behind a hopeless 30%) running a primary against an incumbent Republican will likewise fade away. Maybe he can run for office in Guatamala, where he illegally sent the taxpayer's property.
NOBODY'S LAFFEYNG NOW!

Yes, Chafee Camp, I mean "Mike". Let's complain over $1,500 worth of trucks sent to poor Guatamalans and not mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars in free health care Chafee gave to the crossing guards and their families in Warwick, or the taxes he raised when there was no crisis. CHAFEE IS A DEMOCRAT.