By Bruce Landis
Outgoing state Republican Chairman Mark Zaccaria said Sunday the party has elected a new chairman, Mark Smiley, the Warren Republican Town Committee chairman, who defeated Daniel Harrop, a former Providence mayoral candidate.
The announcement followed what Zaccaria described as "detailed investigations" into the results of last Thursday's election for his successor, which had been in question.
Party leaders had determined that one more vote was cast than there were members registered to vote.
"The problem was that our source documents from the double check-in for voting showed one less ballot issued than we had in the stack we counted," Zaccaria said.