Why not allow Municipalities to use their existing ISP to connect to the CVRS?
Two reasons: A) Manageability/Reliability of Service – The CVRS is a mission critical application. Downtime is not an option when it comes to managing elections in the state of Rhode Island. While there are certainly cities and towns with highly skilled networking staff who maintain reliable networks, not every town has this. In some cases, the networks or lack thereof in some municipalities would have made it impossible for the Secretary of State to guarantee the functionality of the CVRS which would compromise the integrity of elections across the state. The Rhode Island Department of Health had already decided to develop RINET-Muni with federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) funding to link all the municipalities in one network for emergency communication purposes. By joining with the Department of Health, the Secretary of State is able to offer a reliable network to all municipalities for the purpose of accessing the CVRS. In the event of a network outage at any municipalities,
