Allegations of mail-ballot shenanigans were made, at the very least, in the previous Rhode Island election cycle. In 2012, a private detective hired by Congressional candidate Anthony Gemma produced video of an individual offering to sell completed mail-ballots to a campaign, who was shown with purportedly sealed ballots in his possession as evidence he could deliver. However, according to the Richard C. Dujardin of the Projo, the State Police investigated the case and found some “procedural irregularities, but nothing that rose to the level of criminal conduct”.

One unintended benefit of Buddy Cianci running for mayor of Providence seems to be that people are taking what are at a minimum “procedural irregularities” a little more seriously now. They are now newsworthy in the absence of accompanying video, or maybe on-the-ground sources are a little quicker to drop-a-dime when Cianci is involved…

The state police are investigating possible ballot tampering at the state’s largest homeless shelter after two “official-looking men with clipboards” entered Crossroads Rhode Island on Wednesday and asked residents to hand in their mail ballots — and in one case asked for a resident’s blank ballot. (Tom Mooney, Providence Journal)

A quick memo to the future: If the most recent allegations of vote tampering or voter intimidation turn out to be true, the process should be cleaned up, even in elections where Buddy Cianci is not running and systematic mail ballot “irregularities” or worse are working to the advantage of Democratic candidates.

The Rhode Island state police should also give the public some sense of what would need to happen for prosecutable criminal conduct to occur in this apparently recurring area of Rhode Island get-out-the-vote activity.