According to the district court ruling, Moreau filed 2058 signatures while Fontes filed 333. 136 of those for Fontes were disqualified, including 65 duplicates, which left him 3 short of the needed 200 signatures. It was these 65 duplicates that were at issue. Meanwhile several hundred of the Moreau signatures were disqualified, including 111 duplicates.

If Moreau solicitors were simply following Fontes from door to door, it would appear that many if not most persons were rejecting Fontes, but agreeing to sign for Moreau. More likely, Moreau solicitors simply did a mass trawl of the city (which has a bit over 6000 registered voters), and in actuality was beaten to the clerk’s office more often than not.

Of the 264 Fontes signatures from, 65 (25%) were duplicates filed by Moreau first, 111 (42%) were duplicates filed by Fontes first, and 88 (33%) were unique to Fontes.

The judge seems to overly concerned that 1500 voters were “disenfranchised” by signing Moreau’s petition, and may have based his decision in part based on the feeling. Otherwise, the Central Falls procedure would at worst appear to be a clumsy implementation of a reasonable regulation to prevent a voter from supporting two candidacies.

Only two people filed for office and I doubt that is too different from the cities history.