SMITHFIELD — The town’s Board of Canvassers has picked Nov. 13 as the date for a special election that will decide whether Stephen G. Tocco remains a member of the Town Council.

The canvassers acted on Friday, just hours after a Superior Court judge declined to intervene and force the special election to take place Nov. 3. Under the terms of the Town Charter, if Tocco is voted out of office, the Town Council will pick a successor because Tocco would have served more than half of his two-year term. If the election had been scheduled for Nov. 3, with the same result, he would have served less than half his term and thus would be replaced at a townwide special election.

Tocco, president of the council, is a Democrat. The charter requires the council to pick another Democrat if he is voted out.

In a related development yesterday, Councilman Ronald F. Manni, a Republican, demanded an investigation of the events that led to last week’s hurried court battle.

Also yesterday, Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis announced that everything was now in order and said that Smithfield voters will be asked on Nov. 13, “Should Stephen G. Tocco be recalled and removed from the office of Town Councilman for the Town of Smithfield under the Recall Provision as set forth in Article IX of the Charter of the Town of Smithfield?”

The canvassers voted 2 to 1 on Sept. 14 to certify voter signatures on recall petitions that were to be filed with the office of the secretary of state. The canvassers specified that the election was to take place Nov. 3. Due to time restrictions set by state law, the deadline for submitting the paperwork to Mollis’s office was 4 p.m. on the day the canvassers acted.

But the papers arrived 36 minutes beyond the deadline, and on Sept. 17 Mollis’s office refused to accept them.

That sparked an instant court battle, instigated by James W. Archer, chairman of the Republican Town Committee, who contended that it would be better for the town’s voters to elect a successor rather than have the council, by then divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans, pick one.

Three days of courtroom action followed, with lawyers representing the attorney general, the secretary of state, the Board of Canvassers, the chairman of the town’s Democratic Town Committee and Archer.

Michael P. Narducci, deputy director of the state Board of Elections, testified that other than the 4 p.m. deadline, there was no barrier to going forward with an election on Nov. 3.

At the end, Associate Justice Allen P. Rubine refused to override Mollis. Rubine said that state election law carved the 4 p.m. deadline out of stone, and left him with no discretion.

Manni, in a statement he issued yesterday, asked Town Clerk Diane L. Ady, who also is clerk of the Board of Canvassers,

“Since last Wednesday I have been bombarded with questions as to what went wrong with the recall papers,” Manni said.

He said it was “a mystery” why the papers were not turned in on time.

“Never before had the people of Smithfield initiated a recall election for a public official,” Manni said. “This is a historic moment for our community. To have the wheels fall off this at the last minute is strange, to say the least. If an error was made, then let’s figure out what happened. The people of Smithfield deserve answers as to why a ballot question that they initiated was not brought to fruition. Voter-led initiatives are the very essence of ‘for the people and by the people.’”

He said he is drafting a charter amendment for the November 2008 election that would let citizens fill vacancies on the council and the School Committee through elections.

Pasquale A. Matteo, chairman of the canvassers, testified in last week’s lawsuit that he had voted against holding the election on Nov. 3 but was overruled by the other two members of the panel.

“It was not that I did not want an election on November 3, but it was not a good day — it was a Saturday. I thought a Tuesday was preferable.

Matteo said he left the meeting to go to a doctor’s appointment. He returned between 4 p.m. and 4:10 p.m., he testified. By that time the papers were in a car in the parking lot that was to be driven to Mollis’s office in Providence by a courier, he said.

Matteo said he examined the papers in the lot, then signed them.

Ady said later that someone at Town Hall had called Mollis’s office to ask when the office closed. The answer was 4:30 p.m., she recounted. She and the canvassers assumed that the deadline was 4:30, but it actually was 4 p.m.

tmorgan@projo.com