PROVIDENCE -- The Rhode Island Supreme Court will now review Republican candidate Kara D. Russo's complaint filed with the Board of Elections last week.

The complaint in part seeks to halt the printing of Nov. 2 election ballots without a name for a GOP candidate for lieutenant governor until the court completes its review. It asks that the court review whether there should be a blank on the ballot for the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor.

Russo, who lost the Republican primary to Heidi Rogers in the lieutenant governor's race, argues that Rogers' abrupt departure from the race three days after the primary, has cheated and disenfranchised the voters.

The elections board rejected her request to order Secretary of State Ralph Mollis to put either Rogers' name, or Russo's name, on the Nov. 2 ballot. The board also declined to order Mollis to halt the ballot-printing until a Republican name can be put on the ballot.

Rogers, one of three parties named in Russo's complaint, said she withdrew from the race to give independent Robert J. Healey Jr. a better chance of winning against incumbent Democrat Elizabeth H. Roberts and independent Robert P. Venturini.
Rogers and Healey both want the office abolished.

The other two named defendants are state Republican Committee Chairman Giovanni Cicioni, and Mollis.

Lawyer Keven A. McKenna, who represents Russo; Raymond Marcaccio, who represents the Board of Elections; and a representative of the Attorney General's department, representing Mollis, met privately with Supreme Court Associate Justice Francis X. Flaherty, who was the duty judge on Monday. The meeting lasted approximately 20 minutes.

McKenna has argued that Rogers had no constitutional right to withdraw.

Marcaccio said, "We expect something shortly" from the Supreme Court, given that the matter "is time-sensitive because of the election."