The state’s Board of Elections has two new members, filling longtime vacancies just in time for the 2008 election season, which kicks off with tomorrow’s deadline for candidates to declare their intent to seek office.

The Senate last week unanimously confirmed nominees Martin E. Joyce Jr., of Cumberland, and Richard H. Pierce, of Cranston, several weeks after the governor submitted their names.

Joyce is a former personnel director, most recently for the City of Pawtucket and before that, Central Falls. In recent years, he has served as an investigator for the state Labor Relations Board and for the consumer protection division of the attorney general’s office, according to the governor’s spokesman.

Joyce’s term expires in 2017.

Pierce, a lawyer with the Providence firm Hinckley, Allen & Snyder, is a former member of the Cranston City Council and the Cranston School Committee member. Pierce was nominated to the Board of Elections twive before, but was never confirmed by the Senate, prompting the governor to withdraw his name on both occasions.

Pierce’s term expires in 2021.

Carcieri’s third nominee, John Clarke, of West Warwick, does not appear to have received a vote by the Senate in the final days of the session last week. A Senate spokesman could not say this afternoon what happened to Clarke’s nomination. In 2006, Clarke ran unsuccessfully against Sen. Stephen D. Alves, finance committee chairman, for his Dist. 9 seat in West Warwick.

Last month, the government watchdog group Common Cause of Rhode Island wrote to the governor saying it was “gravely concerned that if appointments to fill three vacancies are not submitted immediately for Senate confirmation, a major political crisis faces Rhode Island.”

Member Judith Bailey resigned in 2005; Roger Begin departed in 2006; and Thomas V. Iannitti turned in his resignation, according to executive director Robert Kando.

-- Cynthia Needham, Journal State House Bureau