PROVIDENCE — When the mail ballot applications from Providence’s South Side arrived last week in anticipation of the Sept. 9 Democratic primary, it was clear right away to longtime Board of Canvassers Chairman Laurence K. Flynn that something was amiss.

There were 188 mail ballot applications filed by the candidates, for General Assembly races where perhaps 2,000 people vote.

“This is high. I’ve been on this board for 25 years. This is high. And that brings this all into question,” Flynn said, explaining that, once, Providence was a city where the mail ballot was a feared political weapon, controlled by local ward bosses and able to swing elections.

One candidate for state Senate, Maryelyn Alba-Acevedo, turned in more than 100 applications for mail ballots, including more than the allowed 50 witnessed by one notary. Thirty-six of her applications said the applicants could not vote for religious reasons, a rarely used exemption.

Her political ally, Wilbur W. Jennings Jr., who is running for state representative, turned in close to 50. Of those, nearly three dozen listed the applicants as so disabled that they could not vote: including Jennings’ three sons and three sisters.

Alba-Acevedo’s and Jennings’ primary opponents, Rep. Thomas Slater and Sen. Juan Pichardo, both incumbents, say the disabilities and the religious exemptions are fake. They have hired a lawyer and are challenging the legitimacy of Alba-Acevedo’s and Jennings’ mail ballots.

“The alleged disabilities and/or religious tenets outlined on said applications do not exist,” their lawyer wrote in a letter to the Board of Elections.

The Board of Canvassers turned to the state police for an investigation of Alba-Acevedo’s ballots, and after receiving a report back from the police, rejected her ballots Friday.

“We found that some of those applications are tainted, and that’s why they were not accepted by us,” Board of Canvassers Chairman and Secretary Laurence K. Flynn said.

According to the state police, many of Alba-Acevedo’s mail ballot applications came from a high rise, where she offered mail ballots to people who may not have known what they meant.

“The people who signed it were unsure what they were signing,” said state police Major Steven G. O’Donnell.

O’Donnell said that, having given their report to the Providence Board of Canvassers, the state police consider the matter closed, and Alba-Acevedo will not face any criminal prosecution.

Those voters will still be able to go to the polls and vote on primary day.

Jennings’ applications passed muster with the city’s Board of Canvassers, but Slater and Pichardo have informed the state Board of Elections of their intent to challenge Jennings’ mail ballots on primary day.

Mail ballots allow a voter who cannot be present on Election Day to cast a ballot in absentia, and are valuable in local races where each vote counts, Slater said. For example, mail ballots can be used to make up for the lack of a political organization that can transport voters to the polls.

Mail ballots have also been used to gain votes from supporters who now live outside the district, but are still registered at their previous address. If these supporters came to the polls, Slater said, they could be easily challenged. Mail ballot challenges are more difficult.

Alba-Acevedo, a first-time candidate, said that she was doing a service for elderly and disabled voters by getting them mail ballots, and that her opponents are trying to use that against her.

“This is malicious. These people are using the law to harm voters.”

She also said that she acquired mail ballots for some Latinos who may not be comfortable with the U.S. political system yet.

As for the unusually high number of religious exemptions, “In the neighborhood I live in, there are a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” who are forbidden by their religion to participate in the political process, she said. How then, did she manage to convince them to participate by mail?

“It was hard for me to convince them, but I’m a Christian too, and I have knowledge of the Bible,” she said.

Jennings, 64, the former director of Providence’s Department of Public Works and a seven-time candidate for state and city office, submitted mail ballot applications for his sons, Darrell, 31; Tremaine, 22, and Wilbur William, 23, who are all listed as living at Jennings’ home at 115 Sinclair Ave.

The applications each affirm that Jennings’ sons are “incapacitated to such an extent that it would be an undue hardship to vote at the polls because of illness, mental or physical disability, blindness or a serious impairment of mobility.”

Jennings said his opponents are playing politics and taking advantage of his family’s misfortunes.

Darrell, he said, may never work again due to liver problems.

“He is on disability — he’s got liver problems. He’s sick, he’s very, very sick,” Jennings said. “He’s been in and out of hospitals.”

His second son, Tremaine, has also had it rough, and he stays at the house often, Jennings said.

“He’s in and out, he has problems. He comes here, he fights with his girlfriend sometimes, then he comes here.” Though he said that perhaps he had made an error in listing Tremaine as seriously disabled.

About his third son, Wilbur William, however, the elder Jennings said he definitely should not have listed him as disabled, and has withdrawn the application.

Jennings also put in disability applications for his three sisters, and for one of his sister’s daughters. All four were listed as living at 43 Puritan St.

His sister Sandra, he said, has always been seriously disabled. His sister Rayeanne Fortes, he said, has been ill.

And his sister Linda Gobern also has health issues, he said.

One of his sister’s daughters went into the hospital for surgery several days ago, he said, necessitating the disability application for the 25-year-old.

He said that dragging his family into this is a politically motivated dirty trick by an incumbent who is running scared.

“It’s part of the game. It’s crazy, it’s all nonsense,” Jennings said.

dbarbari@projo.com