FINAL UPDATE (1/4/08):

Since this article came out, Ron Paul has qualified for the Rhode Island primary. See the article “Paul, McCain, Huckabee Qualify on Rhode Island Ballot” here at Nolan Chart.

The Providence Journal reported yesterday (12/24/07) on its website that only Rudy Giuliani has filed the required 1,000 signatures for the Republican primary. Democratic candidates Obama and Clinton have also submitted the necessary minimum signatures.

So far, Ron Paul only has 484 signatures submitted. Romney and McCain have more, at 771 and 706 respectively. The others have fewer.

The deadline was moved up to Dec. 26–88 days before the Mar. 4 primary.

Most delegates for the Republican convention (Sep. 1 – 4, in Minneapolis) will be selected on Feb. 5 “Super Tuesday”. However, in a race where there is no front-runner, every delegate will count. Rhode Island accounts for 20 of the GOP's 2,380 delegates.

The easiest way for a candidate to lose is to not to get on the ballot. Earlier this week, Fred Thompson failed to get on the Delaware ballot by not getting 500 signatures from prospective Republican voters. According to CBS News, he got the minimum number of signatures, but not enough of the signers were registered Republicans. That means Thompson automatically loses 18 delegates. Delaware is one of the Super Tuesday states.

In a prior article, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo did not file in Virginia. Two days later (12/20/07), Tancredo withdrew from the race.

This is shaping up to be a five way race, where every delegate is precious–including these 20 in the “Hope” State. In Iowa, Giuliani is fourth at 14% in a recent poll by American Research Group. Ron Paul is nipping at Giuliani's heels at 10% in fifth place, which is a significant bump up from 4% about a week before. Huckabee has dropped to 23%, Romney 21%, McCain 17%. Thompson, Hunter and Keyes are becoming invisible at single digits.

UPDATE:

I received an email from Dan Garthwaite, coordinator for the Ron Paul Rhode Island Meetup Group (http://ronpaul.meetup.com/802), which stated that over 2,000 signatures have been turned in so far, and the rest will be turned in today. With twice the minimum number of signatures, Paul may get more signatures than any of the Republican candidates, similar to what happened in Virginia.

If anyone wants to verify the total, this is the link to the Rhode Island Secretary of State's office: http://www.sec.state.ri.us/candidates/presidential/. The deadline is today (12/26/07) at 4 p.m.

The national effort for ballot access signatures seems to focus now on Ohio. In an article by creator at Nolan Chart, signatures must be mailed in by tomorrow (12/27/07).

UPDATE 2:

As of this morning (12/29/07), there were over 2,507 Ron Paul signatures appearing at the website–more than any other Republican–with 476 of them certified so far. Republicans Romney, McCain, Huckabee, Thompson, and Giuliani also turned in more than 1,000. The only candidate to turn in more signatures is Hillary Clinton at 2,579. So far, only Barack Ombama is Qualified on Ballot, with more than 1,000 certified signatures. Great job!