On July 23, the Rhode Island Secretary of State used a random procedure to determine the order in which parties would appear on the November 2010 ballot. The Moderate Party will appear first, followed by the Democratic Party, then the Republican Party, then the column for independent candidates.
Some Rhode Island towns do not use a party column ballot format. However, even in those towns, the random procedure determines which parties are listed first in the part of the ballot that includes the straight-ticket device, and the Moderate Party will be first there also.
What I’d like to see is to have each county have a drawing for the order of the candidates to appear on the ballot.
It will probably help them somewhat, although I don’t know how big of an effect it will have.
Actually it has been rumored that people have won elections just because they were the first name on the ballot. People didn’t know much about the candidates so they checked the first name. I wonder if that could help the Moderate Party?