PROVIDENCE –– The state Board of Elections voted unanimously yesterday to preserve the voting rights of two men found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity some 20 years ago.

The panel overturned a nine-month-old decision by Cranston elections officials, who found that William Sarmento and John A. Sarro were too mentally ill to cast a ballot.

Lawyers with the Rhode Island Disability Law Center, who have been representing the men, said they were happy with the decision.

“It’s a relief,” said Kate Bowden, a staff attorney with the center. “We’re very pleased that the state Board of Elections heard our arguments.”

But Joseph A. DeLorenzo Jr., chairman of the Cranston Board of Canvassers, tore into the panel.

“This is a travesty,” he said, adding that he hopes the Board of Elections members “can sleep tonight.”

DeLorenzo said his board would consider an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

The dispute over the rights of the men, who are confined to a state mental hospital in Cranston, has stirred strong emotions.

Sarmento, 41, admitted to killing two boys –– Frankie Lee Barnes Jr., 9, and Jason Wolf, 6 –– in 1987 in a widely publicized case.

And Sarro, 53, slashed a man’s throat at a bar in 1981 before killing a fellow patient at a state mental hospital.

But lawyers for the pair argued yesterday that the state must tread carefully in stripping anyone of a fundamental, constitutional right.

They said a moment of madness years ago says little about an individual’s ability to choose between candidates.

And they held that only a court ruling specifically declaring Sarro and Sarmento incompetent to vote would be grounds for disenfranchisement.

That kind of argument is gaining traction on a national level as policymakers and the courts work to give those with serious mental illness more autonomy.

The rationale, advocates say: just because someone might not be able to manage their own money or make health-care decisions does not mean they are incapable of voting.

A federal court in Maine endorsed that argument in 2001, striking down a constitutional provision that barred voting by anyone under guardianship.

More recently, the American Bar Association urged federal, state, local and territorial governments to be careful in restricting the voting rights of the mentally ill.

And in the fall, New Jersey voters decided to remove language in the state Constitution declaring that “no idiot or insane person shall enjoy the right of suffrage.”

But there is still significant variation around the country.

In 19 states, authorities must obtain a court ruling specifying that someone is incompetent to vote before removing them from the rolls, according to the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington.

But 19 others have broader bans on people who are under guardianship or “non compos mentis,” Latin for “not master of one’s mind.”

Rhode Island is in the latter camp, with a constitutional provision declaring that “no person who has been lawfully adjudicated to be non compos mentis shall be permitted to vote.”

The Cranston board found that Sarro and Sarmento had essentially been found non compos mentis when Superior Court judges found them not guilty of murder by reason of insanity in 1986 and 1989, respectively.

And because semiannual evaluations by the courts have not resulted in the men’s release, the panel found the insanity finding stands.

Frank Manni, a lawyer for the Board of Canvassers, repeated those arguments yesterday in the hearing before the four-member state Board of Elections.

But the board members, known as commissioners, seemed skeptical from the outset –– suggesting they saw no clear link between the not guilty by reason of insanity findings and the patients’ competence to vote.

“This glove does not fit,” said Commissioner Florence G. Gormley.

Commissioner Frank J. Rego said he was concerned that a denial of Sarro’s and Sarmento’s right to vote could lead to restrictions on autistic voters or those with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Manni emphasized that the Constitution focuses on a rather narrow group of people –– those who have been deemed non compos mentis by a court.

And he said the city has no intention of restricting the rights of those with manageable mental illnesses.

But the argument did not seem to allay Rego’s fears.

Bowden, the lawyer for Sarro and Sarmento, had better luck with her central argument: murder and confinement to a state mental hospital do not, alone, justify removing a citizen from the rolls.

Mental-health advocates from around the country, who have been monitoring the case, said they were pleased with the board’s decision.

Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal director for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, said she was particularly happy to learn that the board had distinguished between a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity and an individual’s ability to choose between candidates.

“It’s heartening to hear that the board recognizes the current understanding of competence,” she said, an understanding that focuses on aptitude in specific areas –– such as voting and personal finance –– rather than relying on blanket diagnoses of insanity.

“It reflects the national trend,” she said, “and the current understanding in the law and science.”

dscharfe@projo.com