PROVIDENCE — In a decision that could have far-reaching effects on the way Rhode Island conducts elections, Superior Court Judge Stephen J. Fortunato Jr. ruled yesterday that any ballot that cannot be read by electronic voting machines during an election recount must be made available for public scrutiny to determine if a voter’s intent can be discerned.

Over the objections of the state’s top election officials, Fortunato ordered the state Board of Elections to permit an East Providence City Council candidate, Joseph Larisa Jr., to manually review 96 problem ballots that were photocopied during a recount on Tuesday.

“We’re dealing with a fundamental right,” Fortunato said. “Surely we cannot surrender elections to machines.”

The Board of Elections declined to comply, with the five commissioners voting unanimously to appeal the decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

“The people of Rhode Island should be outraged,” said Thomas V. Iannitti, the board’s acting chairman. “I think we should take this to the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s the most offensive thing I’ve witnessed since I’ve been here.”

Until now, the Board of Elections has barred public access to ballots and entrusted Optech scanners to discard ballots that were not properly completed. Candidates have been invited to observe recounts, but not to examine ballots, including those that did not register a vote, as they are re-inserted into scanners.

In court, state election officials said the electronic system guaranteed objectivity and prevented the disruptive manual reviews that bedeviled the recount of ballots in Florida during the 2000 presidential contest.

Raymond A. Marcaccio, a lawyer for the Board of Elections, said Rhode Island law defines a vote as the completion of the arrow pointing to a candidate’s name – the only marking recognized by the Optech scanner. Manually examining ballots to interpret voter intent, he said, has never been allowed.

“I don’t want to make it sound like we are now in the age of cyborgs,” Marcaccio said. “But this is a whole new way of electing officials.”

Fortunato rejected those arguments yesterday, criticizing current election policies as “secretive” and inconsistent with widely accepted legal principals.

The reason the legislature required paper ballots, Fortunato said, is to facilitate precisely the scrutiny Larisa requested. Prohibiting observers from viewing ballots, he said, is “ludicrous and antithetical to the democratic process.”

Advances in election technology, Fortunato added, do not obviate the need for human oversight. “The Titanic was a whole new way to transport people across the Atlantic,” he said. “Neither the human beings involved nor the machines are infallible.”

The ruling breathed new life into Larisa’s campaign to retain his council seat.

After Tuesday’s recount of more than 16,400 ballots, Larisa trailed Isadore Ramos, a former assistant school superintendent in East Providence, by 16 votes. But Larisa said that tally might change after a manual review of 21 ballots that the scanners rejected as so-called overvotes — a voter selected both candidates — and 12 ballots that the voting machines considered blank but that could contain underlines or circles that reveal the voter’s preference. (Sixty-three additional ballots triggered errors in the tabulation of other races or referenda during the recount.)

Fortunato also granted Larisa access to 93 provisional ballots and 612 absentee ballots cast in the race.

“Democracy demands that ballots be looked at by the public,” Larisa said outside the courtroom.

Larisa’s lawyer, Angel Taveras, originally filed the lawsuit on behalf of Cranston mayoral candidate Allan W. Fung. But Fung, a Republican, conceded on Tuesday and withdrew as a plaintiff after a recount the day before left him trailing Democrat Michael T. Napolitano by 79 votes, more than the number of ballots that were rejected as blank or overvotes in his race.

In an emergency hearing on Nov. 14, Fortunato predicted that he would rule in favor of Fung and Larisa, who had joined the lawsuit. He ordered the Board of Elections to photocopy all problem ballots, dismissing objections from election officials who said that would slow recounts and increase the possibility of damaging or losing ballots.

Election officials postponed eight scheduled recounts, which did not begin until Monday, after the state Supreme Court upheld Fortunato’s order. (Six of the seven recounts have now been completed, including those conducted yesterday in town council races in Tiverton and Portsmouth. The final recount, for a state representative race, is scheduled for today.)

Yesterday, Taveras celebrated Fortunato’s decision. “The ruling is good not only for Mr. Larisa, but for the state of Rhode Island,” Taveras said. “It will help ensure trust in our system.”

The Board of Elections did not see it that way. Marcaccio said state law only requires that ballots be preserved for 22 months following an election, and he said it would benefit the system if they were kept isolated until they were destroyed.

At their first board meeting since the Nov. 7 election, commissioners yesterday afternoon also criticized Fortunato, arguing that his ruling had compelled them to treat one election different than all others.

“You can’t change the rules at the end of the game,” said commissioner Frank J. Rego. “He’s just opened Pandora’s box.”