“Ballots have not arrived,” reads a sign at a polling station in Puerto Rico. This was the story at multiple locations across the island for Sunday’s primary election for governor, resident commissioner (non-voting representative to Congress), and for the legislature.
The finger-pointing to place blame has already begun, with much of it falling upon the president of the Elections Commission, Juan Ernesto Dávila. However, the party in power, headed by appointed Governor Wanda Vázquez—who is running for reelection—is catching a ton of flak as well. Here on the mainland, right-wingers like Geraldo Rivera have gotten into the act, mindlessly and inaccurately blaming Democrats.
The end result is that some of the polling locations are scheduled for a redo next Sunday. Currently, the results at others where there were long delays will stand, even though many people went home in disgust after waiting for hours, masked, in long lines in the hot sun, waiting to cast their ballots.
Dánica Coto, reporting for the Associated Press was on top of the breaking story, entitled “Puerto Rico halts primary voting in centers lacking ballots.”
Puerto Rico on Sunday was forced to partially suspend voting for primaries marred by a lack of ballots as officials called on the president of the U.S. territory’s elections commission to resign.The primaries for voting centers that had not received ballots by early afternoon are expected to be rescheduled, while voting would continue elsewhere, the commission said.
“I have never seen on American soil something like what has just been done here in Puerto Rico. It’s an embarrassment to our government and our people,” said Pedro Pierluisi, who is running against Gov. Wanda Vázquez, to become the nominee for the pro-statehood New Progressive Party. Meanwhile, Vázquez called the situation “a disaster” and demanded the resignation of the president of the elections commission. “They made the people of Puerto Rico, not the candidates, believe that they were prepared,” she said. “Today the opposite was evident. They lied.”
A federal control board that oversees Puerto Rico’s finances issued a statement saying the “dysfunctional” voting process was unacceptable and blamed it on what it said was inefficiency by the elections commission. The unprecedented situation comes as voters ventured out amid a spike in COVID-19 cases across Puerto Rico, an island of 3.2 million people that has reported more than 12,800 probable cases, more than 8,500 confirmed cases and at least 274 deaths.
CBS reporter David Begnaud, one of the few non-Latino journalists who has been covering Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria, tweeted:
Syra Ortiz-Blanes and Bianca Padró Ocasio reported for The Miami Herald:
“’Never in my life had I seen this.’ Puerto Rico to delay primaries amid election chaos”
Earlier Sunday, candidates for the island’s contentious gubernatorial race were hurrying to find alternatives while they pleaded with voters outside of the metropolitan area to wait in line and to show up at their designated precincts, despite the long lines that had formed since the early morning. In an island where voter turnout has reached nearly 80% in recent general elections, many voters showed up at their precincts with masks on and stood under the hot summer sun, some with their clothes soaking with sweat.
At 3 p.m., some precincts were still waiting to receive ballots. The delays and lack of explanations that began early on Sunday caused confusion among poll workers, some of whom were turning away voters.
At the Nuestra Señora De La Piedad School in the municipality of Carolina, Ivette Pagán, a precinct official for the PDP, said almost 300 people had arrived and were not able to cast their vote in the primary election. Pagán said that the eight officials in the precincts had been there since 6 a.m. and had seen many elderly voters show up. She added that some of the voters, who stood in a line that circled the school entrance, were hoping to return next week to vote, despite the health risks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coto updated her tweets throughout the evening.
Geraldo Rivera got into the act:
This comment from Latino Rebels founder Julio Varela gave me pause. I will update this story when more information becomes available later today.