PROVIDENCE — The state GOP has asked the Rhode Island Supreme Court to force the issuance of nominating papers to five Republican General Assembly candidates now in limbo.

On Monday, the GOP appealed to the state Board of Elections after one community and then another rejected the Republicans that state Republican Party chairman Giovanni Cicione nominated as General Assembly candidates last week to fill holes in the party’s election slate. Election officials in Providence and Pawtucket rejected the candidates on grounds the nominations should have been filed with local boards of canvassers, not the secretary of state. A third community, West Warwick, was poised to do the same.

Cicione blamed the situation on advice from a staffer in the office of Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, a Democrat, but Mollis spokesman Chris Barnett said, “We dispute that we gave them any advice at all on how to file their declaration papers.”

The state Board of Elections has scheduled a hearing on the dispute for tomorrow.

But the Republicans went to the Supreme Court yesterday out of concern that even if the five disputed candidates win at the state Board of Elections level, they could miss out on some or all of the 10-day signature gathering period that, under state law, began yesterday. Candidates for the Senate are required to gather 100 signatures, and for the House of Representatives, 50 signatures on their nominating papers.

In the petition filed with the high court shortly before 4 p.m., Cicione acknowledged that the Board of Elections is required to provide at least 48 hours public notice of its hearings. But that means: “a favorable hearing of the board will still result in the denial of no less than three days of the ten-day signature gathering period” which is already “compromised” because it extends this year over the July Fourth holiday weekend.

Under those circumstances, he argued “a Board of Elections hearing is inadequate under the law to the extent that any candidates not provided nominating papers by the secretary of state on July 1, 2008 will be prejudiced and irreparably harmed and the electorate of their districts may be denied the option to vote for a candidate of their choice …”

Saying that Mollis’ office has already “verbally” refused to issue the nominating papers that candidates, by law, were required to pick up yesterday, the GOP petition asks the Supreme Court to order the secretary of state to “immediately deliver” nomination papers to the five candidates in dispute, so they can do what they are required to do while the legal dispute plays out at the state and local levels.

The candidates include the state GOP’s director of operations and community outreach, Lammis Vargas, and two of Governor Carcieri’s stalled nominees to the state Board of Elections: John J. Clarke Jr. and Elaina Goldstein.

Vargas is seeking a Senate seat held for more than three decades by Pawtucket Democrat John McBurney. Clarke is trying again to unseat Senate Finance Chairman Stephen Alves, D-West Warwick, and Goldstein to unseat Rhoda Perry of Providence, the East Side Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Health & Human Services.

In addition: Kofua Kulah was appointed by Cicione to challenge Democratic Sen. Paul V. Jabour for his 5th District seat, representing Federal Hill; and Damien Baldino to run against the winner of the Democratic primary between Rep. Steven Smith and challenger John Carnevale. Providence has not sent a Republican to the Assembly since 1994.

State law allows party chairmen to appoint candidates within 24 hours of the candidate-filing deadline. Under the aegis of that law, Cicione last Thursday notified the secretary of state that he was appointing the three Republican candidates in Providence, the fourth in West Warwick, and the fifth in Pawtucket.

Notwithstanding the bad advice he claims the GOP got from the secretary of state’s office, Cicione argues that the law is actually silent on where such nominees, by a party chairman, should be filed. “Given no specific statutory language to the contrary, it is reasonable that the actions of the state party be directed to the secretary of state, rather than to multiple local boards of canvassers as such interpretation … is more reasonable than the alternative.”

As of close of business yesterday at the courts, there was no clear answer on when, or if, the Supreme Court would take up the GOP’s plea for intervention.

kgregg@projo.com