PROVIDENCE — Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis said Monday he will not press for an appeal of a court ruling that threw out a part of the election law that limited when new parties could start collecting signatures to petition for a spot on the statewide ballot.

But it wasn’t clear if other defendants in the case, the state Board of Elections and the attorney general’s office agreed.

Robert Kando, Board of Elections executive director, said the board would have to decide whether to appeal. He said he has called for a board meeting on Wednesday at 3:40 p.m. at the agency’s office on Branch Avenue to discuss the matter.

Michael J. Healey, spokesman for Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, said the office wanted to review the decision to see if it created new problems or needed more clarification.

Before Friday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge William E. Smith, new Rhode Island political parties that wanted to petition their way onto the statewide ballot had to collect signatures from registered voters equal to 5 percent of the number that turned out in the previous statewide election — 23,588 based on the 2008 vote.

The law also said the potential party had to wait until Jan. 1 of the election year to start collecting signatures.

Mollis said in a statement that throwing out the Jan. 1 limitation “gives third parties a fair amount of time to collect signatures while ensuring there is a reasonable demonstration of the support of the people.”

Healey said the attorney general’s office wanted to review the decision from a procedural point of view. He said one concern was that the ruling didn’t seem to set a time limit on how long a party could take to collect its signatures.

He raised the hypothetical case of the parents of a 4-year-old daughter who think their child would be a terrific governor: Could the parents start this year collecting signatures for the 2038 election?

Such questions might be answered by adopting regulations or new laws, he said, but those possibilities have to be examined.

Kenneth Block, the founder of the Moderate Party of Rhode Island, the plaintiff in the case who was represented by the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he had discussed the matter with Kando on Monday and that Kando said if Block didn’t press the state to pay his legal fees, the board might be more likely to let the decision stand.

When reached for comment, Kando said he had discussed the possibility of the state being assessed attorney’s fees and said if Block wasn’t seeking them “that I thought it [an appeal] would be less likely.”

jhill@projo.com