Introduction
Our system of government is democratic. This means that our democracy derives from us, the people. Elections provide an opportunity to make sure your voice is heard and the issues that matter most to your communities are taken seriously. The Economic Progress Institute (EPI) offers this resource to help provide you with the information you need to make the best decisions as you vote this fall. Democracy depends upon participation and engagement, and one of the best ways to become an engaged participant is to stay informed!
Family Values @ Work provided funding to make this election toolkit possible. Family Values @ Work is a national network of 27 state and local coalitions helping spur the growing movement for family-friendly workplace policies such as paid sick days and family leave insurance, which will result in better individual and public health, and greater financial security for families, businesses, and the nation. Thank you, Family Values @ Work!
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Where Is the Voter Information Center?
The Secretary of State’s Voter Information Center offers excellent resources and information on this website: https://vote.sos.ri.gov. Here is a screenshot of the site to help you recognize it online.
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How Do I Register to Vote?
Visit https://vote.sos.ri.gov and click on Register to Vote, shown above. It has a big checkmark on it that looks like this ✓. Once you click on Register to Vote ✓, here is a screenshot of your next screen of information.
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What Are Important Dates and Deadlines for Voters?
Aug. 21 to Sept. 9, 2024: Early voting and emergency mail ballot period for primaries
Sept. 10, 2024: Democratic and Republican primaries
Oct. 6, 2024: Registration deadline to vote in the General Election
Oct. 15, 2024: Deadline to submit a mail ballot application for the General Election
Oct. 16 to Nov. 5, 2024: Early voting and emergency mail ballot period for the General Election
Nov. 5, 2024: General Election
How Do I Find My Polling Place?
Visit https://vote.sos.ri.gov and click on Find a Polling Place / View Sample Ballot icon as shown at left. As shown in the screenshot, enter accurate information about where you live. Then, you will be directed to your official polling place. It is likely to be located not that far from your home.
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How Do I Become a Poll Worker?
Democracy is not a spectator sport. It needs participants to function. Each city and town is responsible for recruiting people to work at their local polls. The State Board of Elections conducts trainings for poll workers to make sure they are prepared and understand the key role they play in improving access to the ballot box. If you are interested in being a poll worker, visit https://vote.sos.ri.gov. Go to the bottom of the page and click on Be a Poll Worker, as shown to the right, then fill out the Poll Worker Application.
Poll workers are paid by the local Board of Canvassers for their service on Election Day. Pay varies by city/town. See the latest Statewide Poll Worker Pay Rates.
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Questions for Candidates
When electing members of the RI General Assembly, you have an important role in shaping the future of your communities. Asking candidates questions is essential for making an informed choice and helps clarify their positions on key issues. It also gives candidates the opportunity to share their plans for solving problems and making improvements in our state. Engaging with candidates through thoughtful questions provides insight into their policy priorities and helps keep them accountable to their promises. This process empowers voters to select representatives who truly reflect their values and interests.
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RI Budget, Revenue and Tax Fairness
Millionaires Tax
Background: In Rhode Island, low-wage workers pay more of their incomes in state and local taxes than do millionaires. This year there was a proposal to create a millionaires tax that would tax income over $1 million. It would only affect 2,100 tax filers but raise an estimated $126 million to be invested in public education, childcare, public transportation, and roads and bridges.
Question: Do you support a millionaires tax to raise revenue and ensure everyone pays their fair share?
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
Background: The state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a tool that puts money back into the pockets of working families. The EITC is proven to reduce poverty. In Rhode Island, the EITC is 16% of the federal EITC, whereas Connecticut and Massachusetts have EITCS that are 40% of the federal EITC.
Question: Do you support raising the state EITC?
Child Tax Credit (CTC)
Background: A Child Tax Credit (CTC) helps with the costs of raising children and has been proven to cut childhood poverty rates by nearly half. Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and 12 other states have CTCs, but Rhode Island does not have a CTC.
Question: Do you support creating a state Child Tax Credit to significantly reduce child poverty?
Economic Opportunity
Temporary Caregiver Insurance (TCI)
Background: Rhode Islanders use Temporary Caregiver Insurance (TCI) as paid family leave to care for new babies or family members who are very ill. Under current law, some family members (like grandchildren and siblings) and people with no qualifying family are not eligible to benefit from the program, despite paying into it.
Question: Do you support expanding the definition of “family” so more Rhode Islanders can use TCI to care for their families?
Background: TCI is completely paid for by RI workers, but worker salaries are only taxed on the first $87,000 in earnings. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and three other states tax salaries up to the Social Security contribution base, which is $168,600.1
Question: To expand paid family leave, do you support taxing worker salaries up to $168,600 like MA and CT?
Background: Rhode Island workers get only 60% of their average paycheck when using TCI, the state paid family leave program. This makes it very hard for low-wage workers to use the paid family leave they are entitled to. Massachusetts and Connecticut pay low-wage workers 80% and 95% of their weekly wage when using paid family leave.
Question: Do you support increasing the wage replacement rate for TCI in Rhode Island?
Making the Minimum Wage a Living Wage
Background: More than half of Rhode islanders are struggling to meet their basic needs like rent, food, healthcare, and childcare expenses. Providence also experienced the highest rent increase in the country in 2023.
Question: Do you support legislation to increase the minimum wage above $15/hour and tie it to inflation so that Rhode Island workers can earn a living wage?
Multilingual Learners
Background: Rhode Island’s multilingual learner population has grown by 63% since 2015 and multilingual learners now make up 12.5% of the overall student population — one out of every eight students in RI. However, RI is not investing enough in the education of multilingual children, especially compared to other states.
Question: Do you support increasing education funding for multilingual students and creating pathways to hire more multilingual teachers?
Investments in Children
Child Care for Child Care Educators
Background: Through the Child Care for Child Care Educators pilot program, qualified frontline childcare providers, most of whom are low-wage earners, can receive free childcare services for their own children. This innovative program has begun to reduce the childcare staffing crisis in Rhode Island.
Question: Do you support making this pilot program permanent?
Child Care Assistance Program
Background: Rhode Island requires low-income families to establish paternity and child support orders as a condition of receiving the Child Care Assistance Program. This requirement creates unnecessary and lasting turmoil between co-parents and is not in the best interest of the child.
Question: Would you vote to eliminate the child support mandate required to participate in the Child Care Assistance Program?
Investments in Healthcare
Medicare Savings Program (MSP)
Background: Average healthcare costs have increased in recent years, and more than half of Rhode Islanders struggle to afford their basic needs. The Medicare Savings Program (MSP) helps low-income seniors and disabled Rhode Islanders afford medical care, but its income eligibility limits are so low that they exclude many people who need help with medical costs.
Question: Do you support increasing the income eligibility for the Medicare Savings Program?
Lifting Rhode Islanders Out of Poverty
RI Works
Background: RI Works is a program, paid for with federal funds, that provides cash assistance for poor families — 70% of the recipients are children. However, families getting cash assistance are still living in deep poverty, which is defined as when a household’s total income falls below 50% of the Federal Poverty Limit (FPL).
Question: Do you support increasing RI Works benefits so RI families will not have to live in deep poverty?
Predatory Payday Lending Rates
Background: Under current state law, payday lenders are allowed to charge annual interest rates of up to 260%, while all other lenders in the state cannot charge more than 36%. Payday lenders trap low-income Rhode Islanders in cycles of debt, drain millions from our local economy, and target communities of color.
Question: Do you support capping annual interest rates for payday loans at 36% like other lenders in the state?
Race, Equity, and Democracy
Equity Impact Statements
Background: An equity impact statement is a tool to help measure whether a bill, if it became law, would make Rhode Island fairer and more equitable, or less so.
Question: Do you support legislation to require equity impact assessments (like fiscal notes) of the state budget and proposed legislation?
The Reinvestment of Proceeds Generated by the Legalization of Marijuana
Background: When marijuana possession was illegal, Black and Latino Americans were arrested and jailed for marijuana crimes at much higher rates than White Americans, even though they had similar rates of marijuana use. This unequal punishment caused great financial and emotional harm to Black and Latino communities.
Question: Do you support legislation to direct some of the money generated by marijuana legalization to be reinvested in communities that were disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs?
Same-Day Voter Registration
Background: Same-day voter registration allows people to register to vote right up to election day, and it is proven to increase voter turnout. Strong democracies need voter participation.
Question: Would you vote to implement same-day voter registration in Rhode Island?
Funding RIPTA, the RI Public Transit Authority
Background: RIPTA, the public transit authority, is a crucial means of transportation for many low-income Rhode Islanders and transports an average of 52,600 Rhode Islanders every day. Currently, many routes do not run often enough, and driver salaries are not competitive with our neighboring states.
Question: Do you support increasing funding for RIPTA to improve/expand routes and ensure driver salaries are competitive enough to fill positions?
Candidate Briefing Book
Another resource that EPI has provided as a means of opening a discussion focused on improving the lives of everyday Rhode Islanders is a candidate briefing book, which we first published in 2022. Although we are in the middle of the 2024 election cycle, this resource asks a question that’s relevant regardless of the calendar year: If every election presents an opportunity for positive change, what kind of change do you want to see in Rhode Island?
We all share the common value of fair treatment and economic prosperity for ourselves and our families. We want to live in healthy and vibrant communities where we can thrive. Elections remind us that policies have significant impact on the communities, people, and issues we value. The challenge is identifying and implementing policies that will deliver meaningful and equitable results.
We think this briefing book provides a starting place for you to examine policies affecting you, your family, and your community. EPI’s expert policy analysts have researched these policies and the factors you may need to consider when promoting budgetary and legislative solutions.
Here is a link to the briefing book: https://economicprogressri.org/publications/2022-candidate-briefing-book.
We encourage you to read, share, and discuss the issues raised in it. Let us know your thoughts!
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Bond Questions That Are on the Ballot in November
The RI Constitution gives the General Assembly the power to refer certain measures to the statewide ballot every two years. These include constitutional amendments, statutes, and bond measures.
Question 1 on the ballot this November asks if voters support or oppose holding a constitutional convention. A constitutional convention consists of elected delegates who propose changes to the RI Constitution. Then, in a separate election, voters vote to support or oppose any proposed changes, including a rewritten constitution.
There are four bond issues that also are on the ballot in 2024. A bond issue is a request for permission to borrow money for projects of statewide impact. In all, RI voters have the opportunity to support or oppose the four questions whose total cost is $343.5 million.
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Questions 2 & 3
Question 2: Higher Education Facilities – $160.5 Million
Approval of this question would allow the issuance of $160.5 million in general obligation bonds for capital improvements to the following two higher education facilities: $87.5 million for the construction of biomedical sciences building at the University of Rhode Island and $73 million for renovations and improvements to support the Institute for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies at Rhode Island College.
Question 3: Housing and Community Opportunity – $120 Million
The issuance of this bond would fund various initiatives related to housing production and infrastructure, community revitalization, and homeownership. This includes:
- $90 million for affordable housing;
- $10 million for property acquisition and revitalization to support the development of public housing and redevelopment;
- $10 million to increase the production of housing units intended for affordable and middle-income homeownership;
- $5 million to acquire properties to be redeveloped as affordable and supportive housing units;
- $4 million for infrastructure related to affordable housing; and
- $1 million to help municipalities plan and implement changes to enable the development of additional housing units.
Questions 4 & 5
Question 4: Green Economy Bonds – $53 Million
This bond issue would fund nine programs and projects for environmental and recreational purposes. These include:
- $15 million for infrastructure at the Port of Davisville (Quonset Point), including the construction of roads to allow offshore wind and other large project cargo to be more easily transported;
- $2 million to pay for a climate resiliency matching grant program to strengthen coastal habitats and river and stream floodplains from storm surges and other effects of climate change;
- $5 million for the state brownfields remediation program through which thousands of contaminated industrial sites have been cleaned up, redeveloped, and returned to productive use as the locations for schools, affordable housing, retail complexes, and playgrounds;
- $5 million for local recreation grants covering the development of sports fields, tennis courts, splash pads, and playgrounds;
- $10 million to provide matching grants to municipalities for up to 75% of project costs to fortify infrastructure such as wastewater treatment plants from sea level rise, intense storms, and other effects of climate change;
- $3 million to help restore and improve the resilience of the Newport Cliff Walk, which is one of the state’s most popular tourist attractions;
- $5 million to protect the state’s working farms and set aside money to purchase additional farmland, if it should become available, to ensure that it remains working farmland and is not developed commercially;
- $3 million for the state open space program, through which Rhode Island has preserved and protected more than 20,000 acres (an area bigger than Manhattan) of open space, farmland, and watershed since 1985; and
- $5 million to fund efforts to manage and protect state forestland and wildlife habitat.
Question 5: Cultural Economy Initiatives Bond – $10 Million
Voter approval of this bond would help fund the following programs:
- $2 million for the Tomaquag Museum, which is dedicated to educating the public about Indigenous history, culture, and arts;
- $2 million to Newport Contemporary Ballet to build a center for arts and dance;
- $2 million for upgrades at the Trinity Repertory Company; and
- $4 million to empower the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts to continue running its one-to-one matching grants program for public and nonprofit arts performance centers throughout the state.
Voter Resources from Other Organizations
Common Cause is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that exists to help demystify, protect, and build a better democracy in Rhode Island. It stands “with those that hold power accountable, regardless of who is in power.” For more information on Common Cause Rhode Island, visit https://www.commoncause.org/rhode-island/our-work/. To sign up for their newsletter or if you’re interested in volunteering, visit https://www.commoncause.org/rhode-island/about-us/.
United Way of Rhode Island has stood up an excellent website, called United We Vote, with lots of information. Visit and bookmark it at https://unitedwevoteri.org/.
EPI co-leads the Protect Our Healthcare Coalition (POHC), which works on policies to protect and expand access to quality, affordable healthcare for all Rhode Islanders. POHC has published voter education guides in English and Spanish.
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