Secretary of State Ralph Mollis is pushing some dubious legislation to change elections in Rhode Island. Meanwhile, he opposes measures to encourage political competition, particularly for General Assembly seats, and changes that would provide greater protection against voter fraud.

Among other measures, Mr. Mollis is proposing two days of voting instead of one: a Saturday as well as the traditional Tuesday.

While replacing the Tuesday election with one on a Saturday makes sense in itself, encouraging greater turnout, two voting days in Rhode Island interrupted by two “off” days would make the system more vulnerable to fraud. (Saturday and Sunday voting might be a compromise approach.) It’s the two days off that scares us.

There is always a question of security of the ballots when votes are not counted immediately after the polls close. (Under the plan, they would sit uncounted for three days, until the polls finally closed Tuesday evening!) Furthermore, to save money, Mr. Mollis contends that the state could not open all polling places on Saturdays — leaving some to only be open the following Tuesday — another opportunity for manipulation.

Also, the secretary of state opposes efforts to bring Rhode Island in line with the vast majority of states by eliminating the system under which voters can elect every candidate on the ballot for one party with a single vote. This is a legacy of machine politics from a century ago.

In practical terms, it gives the dominant party a huge advantage in “down-ballot” races, such as for General Assembly seats, making it much harder for candidates from opposing parties, or those running as independents, to have a chance. If the straight-ticket mechanism were removed, voters who know nothing about such races might either leave the ballot blank or do some research about the candidates. In any event, the playing field should be as even as possible for individual candidates.

Most other states have left this corrupting practice behind — including, last year, nearby New Hampshire. They have concluded that voters are smart enough to actually vote for individual candidates, and that the public interest is well served when they do.

Mr. Mollis also opposes requiring a photo ID for voting. The ID would go a long way toward eliminating the potential for voting by people who are not U.S. citizens and/or are voting under an assumed name. Also troublesome is his legislation requiring the state’s colleges to supply his office with the names and addresses of every student who has just graduated so that the state can keep the students on the rolls.

A safer measure might be to purge the rolls of graduating students; those who remain in the state and wish to vote could take the initiative to notify election officials of their new address.

Mr. Mollis is commendably proposing some measures to weed out more dead “voters” from the voting lists. But such reforms do not go far enough in moving Rhode Island toward states with the best election practices.