PROVIDENCE � The state police are investigating possible ballot tampering at the state�s largest homeless shelter after two �official-looking men with clipboards� entered Crossroads Rhode Island on Wednesday...

PROVIDENCE � The state police are investigating possible ballot tampering at the state�s largest homeless shelter after two �official-looking men with clipboards� entered Crossroads Rhode Island on Wednesday and asked residents to hand in their mail ballots � and in one case asked for a resident�s blank ballot.

Who the two men are is unclear, but a shelter resident identified one of them as the same man who helped him apply for a mail ballot on Columbus Day weekend and urged him to vote.

�He said, �Now remember Buddy when you vote,�� said Francis McKenna, referring to mayoral candidate Vincent A. �Buddy� Cianci Jr. �And I told him, �I was born and bred in Providence. How could I forget him?��

McKenna, who is 64 and has lived at Crossroads off and on for 14 years, said the same man reappeared at his door Wednesday at Crossroads and asked for the ballot that McKenna had received in the mail this week. McKenna hadn�t filled it out yet.

McKenna said the man offered to help him fill it out � before asking for the blank ballot.

Anne Nolan, president of Crossroads, asked the state police to investigate when she heard about the incident. �It�s a crime, that�s what it is,� she said. �It�s against the law what they did and that has to be dealt with appropriately.�

By Thursday afternoon, two state police detectives were interviewing McKenna and other people at Crossroads at Nolan�s request. Col. Steven G. O�Donnell, superintendent of the state police, declined to discuss the investigation in detail but said detectives would go in every direction necessary to uncover any impropriety.

Nolan confirmed that a Crossroads security guard did escort two men through the shelter Wednesday.

�They had a list of about 40 people that they wanted to see,� Nolan said, �and they said they were here to collect the ballots.�

The men, however, did not identify themselves, she said, and the security guard didn�t question them because they looked official and had clipboards.

Robert Kando, executive director of the state Board of Elections, said there�s no law that prohibits a campaign worker from collecting properly sealed mail ballots for counting on Election Day. But it�s against the law to fill out someone else�s ballot.

�If someone wants a live ballot that doesn�t belong to him, that�s a felony,� Kando said.

�Nobody is entitled to a ballot that is intended for somebody else.�

After hearing of the allegation, Kando said: �I�m irate if that�s true. If that was going on, I would be through the roof.�

David Ortiz, a spokesman for Democrat Jorge O. Elorza, Cianci�s chief rival, said no workers from Elorza�s campaign had been to Crossroads: �Our campaign is not targeting the homeless community or those at Crossroads as part of our organizational strategy.�

Beryl Kenyon, a spokeswoman for the Cianci campaign, did not immediately answer questions from The Providence Journal about whether the campaign had workers at Crossroads this week or earlier in the month helping the 197 permanent residents apply for mail ballots.

McKenna, who has been registered to vote since 2002, said a knock was heard on the door to his room on the fourth floor at Crossroads at about 1 p.m. Wednesday.

He said he opened the door to see a female security guard escorting the same man who had helped him apply for a mail ballot on Columbus Day weekend.

�He said, �Do you got your ballot ready?� and I said to him, �I just got it yesterday [in the mail], no.� And the guy says, �Well, I need to have it today.��

McKenna said he told the man that by law he had until 8 p.m. Election Day, Nov. 4, to turn in his ballot. It was written on the ballot instructions � and McKenna closed the door on the man.

�He knocked a second time and said he needed the ballot now and said he�d help me fill it out. I told him to screw� and shut the door again.

The man knocked for a third time, McKenna said, and this time asked: �Well, the ballot that was sent to you, can we have that?� Just like that. Imagine? It was so obvious and so blatant what he wanted to do, fill it in himself�. He insulted me, thinking because I live here, he could do that.�

Nolan said she didn�t know if the two men who visited the shelter Wednesday were the same men who visited the shelter on Columbus Day weekend; it was a different security guard then, she said. An internal investigation was under way, Nolan said, to identify the men, how they got into the shelter and whether they were properly escorted.

If it�s true, Nolan said, that Wednesday�s visitors were campaign workers who were pressuring residents to turn over their mail ballots, it�s an egregious act.

�It�s the implication that because [residents] live there, they are in some way diminished in capacity and so we can pull it over on them. And that�s insulting to everybody here.�

The Providence Board of Canvassers has received applications for 3,095 mail ballots for the mayoral election.