This is a story that should have made headlines here in the mainland United States, but because it concerns Puerto Rico, it has been virtually ignored. On November 5, Puerto Rico will hold general elections for governor, commissioners (members of the U.S. Congress who do not have voting rights), the House of Representatives, and the Senate.
Other events are planned. non-legally binding referendum The purpose was to determine whether Puerto Ricans would like to join as the 51st state, become independent, or become a semi-sovereign state in free association with the United States.
The island’s two main political parties, the People’s Democratic Party and the New Progressive Party (not the Progressive Party), have been in power for decades, but appear to have benefited from votes from the grave for too long. According to a new expose from the Center for Investigative Reporting..
“The CPI found nearly 900,000 deaths in the electoral rolls, thousands of whom appear to have voted in the 2020 and 2016 elections. It’s part of the system that has been in place.”
The real issue seems to be whether the election will be fair.
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of CPI finds widespread corruption In Puerto Rico’s electoral system:
The study included analysis of data from the Puerto Rico General Register of Voters (RGE in Spanish), interviews with approximately 20 CEE sources from all political parties, and review of hundreds of documents, with at least 5,870 The voter was found to be a voter. People who died between 2015 and September 30, 2020 are still active in RGE, meaning they voted in either the 2020 or 2016 elections.
More than 2,865 active voters in RGE are over 100 years old, some born in the 1800s. CPI examined a sample of 450 records of these voters on CEE’s voter research platform and found that as of last Friday, less than 2%, and only eight of them, had been excluded due to death. did. According to CEE, more than a dozen people born between 1828 and 1850 voted in the 2020 general election, while others remained active. One of them, a Luquillo resident who would be 174 years old today, was “reactivated” as a voter in 2020, the platform said.
[…]
When asked how many deaths are registered in the electoral register, CEE acting president Jessica Padilla Rivera said that although she could not specify, it was the number of deaths reported in the 2023 population register. declared that the number could not exceed 16,000. , CPI’s analysis shows that the RGE, which contains personal data on approximately 5 million voters, contains approximately 900,000 individuals identified as currently registered active, inactive, or excluded voters. It was found that the deceased individuals were included.
WapaTV in Puerto Rico He noted that the CPI investigation had had enough impact to cause concern to committee members from both parties.
The report also triggered a poll by voters. of Part 2 of the CPI series There was testimony that the following irregularities occurred in the electoral roll.
It’s been six years since Efranis Rodríguez Calvo has lived in Puerto Rico. Since 2018, she has resided in the United States and participated in 2020 election events. After hearing about the registration problems and deficiencies in Puerto Rico’s General Register of Voters (RGE) revealed by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CPI), she decided to register her election through the State Board of Elections (CEE) web application Election Consultation. I decided to check the situation and was surprised to read that I voted in Puerto Rico’s election in November 2020.
“That is not possible because by 2020 I was living in Washington and voted in the US presidential election,” Rodríguez Calvo said during an exchange with CPI. She also submitted proof through the website that she was registered in Washington state and voted there in 2020.
As of February 2022, Rodriguez-Calvo is registered to vote in Texas, but the SEC has not removed her from the electoral roll and will allow her to vote in Puerto Rico. An unspecified number of Puerto Ricans operating in two jurisdictions at the same time are in the same situation. Many Puerto Ricans do not disable Puerto Rico’s voter registry when they immigrate because they do not know if they will return. …
“By this letter, I request that you send me a signature list of the schools where I purportedly voted in (Carolina) Puerto Rico, and that the Puerto Rico State Board of Elections investigate and send me proof of record.” Puerto Rico 2020 My vote in the election and my signature,” the voter said in the letter, which CPI has access to.
What’s important to note is that this story doesn’t just rely on votes from people who have passed away. The votes of living people are being stolen, along with the votes of elderly people in nursing homes and hospices, and the votes of inmates in prisons.
Voting issues are also not new on the island. Back in 2020, Francis Robles wrote: new york times Nearly 200 uncounted ballot boxes surfaced a week after the elections for governors, councilors, and mayors across the island.
The discovery of uncounted ballots could have far-reaching implications for close races on the island, particularly the San Juan mayoral race, where a sudden influx of new votes could force a recount. Officials acknowledged that the vote could change the outcome of particularly close races that have already been precertified. In Culebra, there is currently only a two-vote difference in the mayoral race. 9 in Guanica.
The election chaos, which came three months after a disastrous primary election in which people waited for hours in sweltering heat for their ballots to arrive, further eroded confidence in the electoral process and left many residents disappointed. This highlighted the deep distrust that he had felt towards the government for many years.
“The whole tragedy here is not how it ends up, but with the primary failing and going through this current process, I don’t think anyone in Puerto Rico can say they really trust this system. That’s true,” William Ramirez said. The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Puerto Rico had filed a lawsuit to allow expanded absentee voting. “We had a lot of young people come out. They were voting for the first time and this was their experience.”
Author and activist Javier A. Hernandez wrote in LA Progressive About how little is being done to secure this year’s election in November.
The integrity of Puerto Rico’s elections has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. The pro-national New Progressive Party (PNP), which has a troubling history of electoral fraud and corruption, is poised to manipulate the democratic process again in the November 2024 elections. …
The PNP’s record has been marred by numerous frauds and corruption, casting a long shadow on its credibility. In 2011, the PNP unilaterally banned electoral alliances, a move widely seen as a strategy to weaken the opposition and consolidate its power. This controversial decision comes after the PNP unilaterally amended the election law in 2020 to revise Puerto Rico’s Commission on Elections – CEE, the public entity tasked with managing and overseeing all election events in Puerto Rico. It was made worse by the granting of broad powers. These actions raise serious concerns about the integrity of the electoral process and suggest that the PNP is systematically manipulating the rules to maintain its political advantage.
2020 election and 2024 primaries It was plagued by irregularities, including voter fraud and administrative confusion, further eroding public trust in the electoral system. In the 2024 primary alone, 774 polling places, or 25.6% of the total, suffered significant damage. irregularity This may have an impact on various election activities. Such widespread issues suggest a deliberate effort to skew the results in favor of the PNP. On June 10, 2024, Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court, in an alarming move reminiscent of kangaroo courts in authoritarian dictatorships, Disqualification Several popular opposition candidates from the Citizens Victory Party (MVC), two of them MPs, will be excluded from the 2024 electoral vote.
With less than a month left until election day on the island, it seems unlikely that this corruption will be resolved in advance. The final outcome will be decided both in court and in street protests.
