Alberto Aponte Cardona, attorney for Central Falls Mayor Charles D. Moreau, and Hipolito E. Fontes, 25, speak to the Central Falls Board of Canvassers.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

CENTRAL FALLS — Mayor Charles D. Moreau may well have won a fourth term on a 3-to-0 vote Tuesday as the Board of Canvassers voted unanimously to disqualify the only opponent who filed to run against him in November.

In Central Falls, mayoral candidates need 200 valid voter signatures to get on the ballot and the City Charter only allows voters to sign one mayoral candidate’s petition. Hipolito E. Fontes, 25, turned in petitions signed by 333 voters. But the registrar’s staff found that 133 of them had also signed Moreau’s candidacy petitions. The canvassers, at their meeting yesterday, voted to disqualify three more — one was an inactive voter, one signature didn’t match the one on his voter registration card and the third was another Moreau duplicate that the staff had missed — and that left Fontes with 197 signatures, not enough to qualify for the ballot.

In the case of multiple petition signings by a voter, the charter says the tie goes to the candidate that gets his or her papers in first. Registrar Gertrude Chartier said Moreau filed his at 8:30 a.m. Friday while Fontes filed his at 8:32 a.m.

Moreau turned in petitions with more than 1,500 signatures, seven times the number needed to qualify.

Fontes said he was considering challenging the board’s ruling. He said the charter limit of one signature per candidate contradicts a state law that says “a voter may sign any number of nomination papers for any office the voter may lawfully vote for at the general election.”

“I have 330 people who supported the fact that I ran,” Fontes said.

Fontes said when he was out soliciting signatures, he noticed that at times he was followed by Moreau supporters with their own petitions. And former longtime state Sen. Daniel J. Issa, who attended the canvassers’ meeting, questioned if Moreau had collected so many signatures — the total was more than a fifth of all city voters — with the idea of getting in first and disqualifying some of Fontes’ petitions.

“I was in office 35 years and I never saw anybody get so many names certified before,” said Issa, who lost a 2008 reelection bid to a Moreau-supported candidate.

Moreau’s lawyer, Alberto Aponte Cardona, bristled at that suggestion, saying the number was a reflection of the mayor’s popularity among city voters. What was Moreau supposed to do, Aponte Cardona asked rhetorically, tell someone they couldn’t sign?

He said the high number was also evidence of the mayor’s work ethic.

“This man has never stopped at good enough,” Aponte Cardona told the board.

If it stands, the board’s vote, along with other previous disqualification rulings, means that there will be no primary in the city this year. Two candidates each did qualify in City Council wards 1, 4 and 5.

Moreau sat in the back row during the meeting and declined to comment when it was over, referring questions to his campaign spokeswoman, Cynthia Stern,

She released a typed statement from Moreau that said, “My campaign workers and I have followed all the rules and laws promulgated by the constitution of the State of Rhode Island and the charter of the City of Central Falls in an effort to complete the established process with the utmost integrity.”

Moreau first ran for mayor in 2001 and lost to then-Mayor Lee Matthews, whom he’d know since grade school, by 150 votes. The Bryant University graduate and former director of modernization at the city housing authority came back two years later and beat Matthews by about 20 votes. Since then, he has had comfortable reelection victories.

Because of a 2008 charter change approved by voters, the winner of this year’s mayoral election will serve a four-year term.

jhill@projo.com