Three-quarters of Rhode Islanders want to scrap the Electoral College and choose future presidents by popular vote, according to a poll conducted for a national advocacy group pushing for the switch.

The proposal is aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2000 election, when Democrat Al Gore got the most votes nationwide but Republican George W. Bush put together enough victories in key states to win a majority in the Electoral College and capture the White House.

Among the findings of the June 1 telephone survey of 800 potential Rhode Island voters: 74 percent support the national popular-vote initiative, which cleared the Rhode Island Senate last week and is pending in the House.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Connors, D-Cumberland, would allow Rhode Island, which has four electoral votes, to join a national compact of states that commit their electoral delegates to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of who carried each state. The measure would kick in only if states representing a majority of the nation’s 538 electoral votes decide to make the same change.

Passage of the bill would make Rhode Island the fifth, alongside Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland. (On May 1, both Houses of the Hawaii legislature overrode Gov. Linda Lingle’s veto of the National Popular Vote bill.) Opponents here are concerned that Rhode Island’s voice would be severely “diluted” by a switch to popular-vote selection.

The key polling question went like this: “There is a proposal to change the way we elect the president. The current system elected a president based on the state by state vote totals. The new proposal would switch to a system that elects the president according to the vote totals in all 50 states. Would you generally support or oppose switching to a system that counts the votes in all 50 states combined?”

People on the other end of the telephone would signal their answers — yes or no — by pushing 1 or 2 on touch-tone phones.

The Rhode Island poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling in Raleigh, N.C. The National Advisory Board of National Popular Vote includes former Illinois Republican Congressmen John Anderson, an independent presidential candidate in 1980, and former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., who lost the 1976 presidential nomination to Jimmy Carter.

A spokeswoman for the Clarendon Group, the local public relations company handling the Rhode Island drive, identified John Koza, of Los Altos Hills, Calif., as “the largest contributor (about 90 percent)” of the organization, which has “about 100 contributors in total.” A computer scientist, Koza was a co-inventor of the scratch-off lottery ticket, according to the New York Times.

EPA chief Chafee?

Would there be a role for former U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee in a Barack Obama administration?

Might this title fit: administrator, Environmental Protection Agency?

So goes the speculation in one of the better-known political blogs, Daily Kos, which raised Chafee’s name earlier this week as a potential Obama cabinet member alongside speculation (wishful thinking?) that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson would be Obama’s vice presidential running mate; Richard Clarke, the former antiterrorism adviser to the National Security Council who accused President Bush of mismanaging the war on terror, as secretary of Homeland Security; and former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, a Vietnam veteran, as secretary of defense. (Daily Kos describes itself as a daily Web log that provides “political analysis on U.S. current events from a liberal perspective.”)

A Republican turned independent, Chafee endorsed Obama 2½ weeks before Rhode Island’s March 4 primary. Asked last week if he had discussed a potential role as EPA administrator or anything else in an Obama administration, Chafee said: “No. Obviously there won’t be an Obama administration if he doesn’t win in November and that is what his team is focused upon.”

But would he be interested? “Let’s see where everybody is in November,” he responded, in an e-mail.

Chafee, meanwhile, has been burnishing his environmental credentials with entries such as this May 2008 piece — headlined “GOP Abuses the Environment At Its Own Peril” — that appeared on the TPM Cafe Web page.

It begins “Indeed, ‘here we go again,’ with the Bush EPA weakening environmental rules on building power plants near national parks. The environment is a key issue for many Americans but you would never know it by how willingly the GOP genuflects before Old King Coal.”

“The GOP faces a potential blowout in November on a myriad of issues — Iraq, the economy, gas prices — and, certainly, its insensitivity to environmental issues. If Republican senators are smart, they’ll start to break the pattern by speaking out against this EPA mistake.”

Chafee, the author of Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President, is a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.

Disaffiliation bill in idle

The state Senate is poised to vote tomorrow on a bill to extend the deadline for registered Republican and Democratic voters to disaffiliate so they can vote in whichever primary they choose on Sept. 9.

If that bill becomes law, the deadline to disaffiliate this year — currently this Wednesday, June 11 — will move to Monday, Aug. 11.

There is no guarantee that the bill, introduced by Sen. Leonidas P. Raptakis, D-Coventry, on Jan. 10 and which Senate leaders have finally scheduled for a vote — will go any farther this session.

Under current law, voters have 90 days before a primary, special election or general election to change or leave a political party. That means voters affiliated with either major party have until Wednesday to switch parties or become what in Rhode Island is called an unaffiliated voter.

Voters can disaffiliate by contacting their local board of canvassers.

Prospective candidates for federal, state and local office also face a deadline: They are required to file declarations of candidacy between June 23 and 25.

Every key date leading up to Rhode Island’s primary and general election is included in a 28-page guidebook that is posted on the secretary of state’s Web site.

More than 213,000 voters turned out for Rhode Island’s March 4 presidential primary, which was nearly three times the number of voters who turned out for the state’s last competitive presidential primary in 2000.

Special misdelivery

When Political Scene stopped by Governor Carcieri’s media office on Wednesday, we were greeted by a curious sight: 33 brand-new Gateway computer monitors, stacked high and still in their packaging.

During a budget crisis, you ask?

Don’t point fingers too fast.

“I was sitting in my office and a gentleman from FedEx walked in my door and said he had many packages for me,” said Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal. “… I stuck my head out and saw all the boxes of computer equipment and had no idea why we would be receiving these. I eventually tracked some people down who could help unravel the mystery. It turns out they were misdelivered.”

The monitors were apparently intended for the attorney general’s office, but accidentally delivered to Room 109 –– Neal’s office –– at the State House.

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch’s spokesman, Michael J. Healey, couldn’t explain the delivery mishap, but was quick to point out that the computers were bought using a Department of Justice grant, not state money.

“We secured the money almost two years ago at this point. If we didn’t use the grant money by the end of the fiscal year [this month], it would have gone away,” Healey said.

The computers, he said, will provide “a much-needed upgrade” for the 33 people in five offices across the state who enter time-sensitive criminal case information.

By Friday, the monitors had been moved to the correct location and were reportedly reunited with their matching hard drives.

“They found their mates,” Healey said.

Mayor’s race a magnet

Several Smith Hill faces are on the growing list of candidates lining up for a shot to succeed Michael T. Napolitano as the mayor of Cranston.

First, State House lobbyist and former Republican mayoral candidate Allan Fung expressed interest in the job, as did Democratic Representatives Charlene Lima and Peter G. Palumbo.

(Palumbo has since backed off.)

But State House regular Dan Beardsley, who has been the executive director of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns for the last 19 years, has since said he is “very serious” about gearing up for a run.

“I’ve had a longtime interest in elective office,” Beardsley, 61, said last week. “And needless to say, my 34 years at the League of Cities and Towns gives me a unique perspective on what works in local government.”

Other Democratic hopefuls as of this writing included Cranston City Council Vice President Paula B. McFarland and former council members Cynthia M. Fogarty and Mario Carlino.

Gov’s quick trip to D.C.

Governor Carcieri traveled to Washington, D.C., before sunrise last Wednesday for a task that saw him back in Rhode Island shortly after lunchtime.

He was in the nation’s capital to sit on a panel, brought together by Education Week, that focused on reform in pre-kindergarten through college education.

States across the country have established groups known as “P-16 Councils” to help improve the continuum in a student’s education, smoothing the transition from one phase to the next.

Rhode Island is one of the few states where the governor heads that committee.

In a brief telephone call after his return to the State House, Carcieri told Political Scene that chairing the council allows him to stay involved.

“One of the things from my perspective that I’m looking at is the question of how I institutionalize this process and put pre K-16 [initiatives] in place,” he said.

Education Week, meanwhile, published a story that highlighted what it called Carcieri’s hands-on efforts to help change the path of education in Rhode Island.

The governor’s spokesman, Neal, said the state paid for the governor’s plane fare and that of a state trooper who traveled with him.

Young Indonesians visit

Smith Hill politicians last week welcomed a group of young politicians and policy makers from Indonesia.

The group traveled to Providence as part of a trip to learn about state and local governments in this country and to talk about the nature of politics in a country made up of more than 17,500 islands.

The delegation is part of the American Council of Young Political Leaders which, despite its name, comprises young people involved in government in more than 90 countries.

During their 11-day tour, which also includes Washington, D.C., and Nebraska, the visitors are getting a taste of American culture.

dscharfe@projo.com