This ought to be a narrative that’s making headlines right here on the U.S. mainland, however as a result of it’s about Puerto Rico, it has been nearly ignored. On Nov. 5, Puerto Rico will maintain its common elections for governor, resident commissioner (non-voting member of the U.S. Congress), and for its Home of Representatives and Senate.
They can even be holding one more non-binding standing referendum to see whether or not Puerto Ricans want to be part of because the 51st state, be impartial, or change into a quasi-sovereign state in free affiliation with America.
The 2 main political events on the island, the In style Democratic Occasion and the New Progressive Occasion (which isn’t progressive), who’ve been holding energy for many years, appear to have benefited far too lengthy by being propped up by votes from the grave, in accordance with a brand new exposé from the Middle for Investigative Journalism.
“The CPI found nearly 900,000 deceased people in the Electoral Register, and thousands of them appeared to have voted in the 2020 and 2016 elections. Fraud is part of a system plagued by corruption for decades.”
The true story appears to be whether or not these will likely be truthful elections.
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The CPI discovered intensive corruption in Puerto Rico’s electoral system:
The investigation, which included an evaluation of knowledge from the Puerto Rico Normal Register of Voters (RGE in Spanish) and interviews with some twenty CEE sources from all political events, in addition to a assessment of a whole bunch of paperwork, discovered that no less than 5,872 voters who died between 2015 and September 30, 2020, remained energetic within the RGE, that means they voted in both the 2020 or 2016 elections.
Within the RGE, greater than 2,865 energetic voters could be over 100 years outdated, some with beginning dates within the 1800s. The CPI reviewed a pattern of 450 data of those voters within the CEE’s Voter Inquiry platform and, as of final Friday, discovered that fewer than 2% — solely eight of them — had been excluded resulting from demise. The others remained energetic, together with a dozen born between 1828 and 1850, who, in accordance with the CEE, voted within the 2020 common elections. One in every of them, a resident of Luquillo who could be 174 years outdated in the present day, was “reactivated” to vote in 2020, in accordance with the platform.
[…]
When requested what number of deceased people are within the Electoral Register, the alternate president of the CEE, Jessika Padilla Rivera, stated she couldn’t specify however assured that there should not be greater than the 16,000 deaths reported by the Demographic Registry for 2023. Nonetheless, the CPI’s evaluation decided that the RGE, which incorporates the non-public knowledge of practically 5 million voters, contains virtually 900,000 deceased people recognized as energetic, inactive, or excluded voters nonetheless within the register.
WapaTV in Puerto Rico famous that the CPI investigation had an influence inflicting commissioners from each events to be involved.
The report additionally induced voters to analyze. The second a part of the CPI sequence had testimonies of irregularities within the Electoral Register comparable to this one:
It has been six years since Efranys Rodríguez Calvo has not lived in Puerto Rico. Since 2018 she has resided in america, the place she participated within the electoral occasions in 2020. Upon listening to in regards to the issues with registrations and deficiencies within the Normal Registry of Voters (RGE) in Puerto Rico revealed by the Middle for Investigative Journalism (CPI), she determined to verify her electoral standing via the net software Elector Session of the State Elections Fee (CEE) and shocked she learn that she had voted in Puerto Rico’s elections in November 2020.
“That’s impossible because by 2020 I was living in Washington and I voted in the elections for the U.S. presidency,” Rodríguez Calvo associated when speaking with the CPI. She additionally despatched proof from the web site exhibiting that in 2020 she was registered within the state of Washington and voted there.
As of February 2022, Rodríguez Calvo is registered to vote in Texas, however the SEC would permit her to vote in Puerto Rico because it has not inactivated her from the Electoral Registry. An undetermined variety of Puerto Ricans energetic in two jurisdictions on the identical time are in the identical state of affairs. Many Puerto Ricans don’t deactivate from the Electoral Registry in Puerto Rico after they transfer as a result of they have no idea if they are going to return. …
“By means of this letter I demand that you send me the list of signatures of the school (in which) I supposedly voted in (Carolina) Puerto Rico and I require that the Puerto Rico State Elections Commission investigate and send me proof of the record of my vote and my signature in the 2020 elections in Puerto Rico,” the voter stated in a letter to which CPI had entry.
What’s vital to notice is that this story isn’t just votes getting used from people who find themselves deceased. Votes of the dwelling are being stolen, together with these of aged individuals in nursing houses, and hospices, and votes from jail inmates.
Poll points are additionally not new on the island. Again in 2020, Frances Robles wrote for The New York Occasions about practically 200 packing containers of uncounted votes that surfaced every week after the election for governor, legislators, and mayors throughout the island.
The invention of uncounted ballots might have sweeping results in shut races across the island, specifically the tight contest for mayor of San Juan, the place the sudden inflow of latest votes might drive a recount. Officers acknowledged that the votes might change the outcomes of notably slim races that had already been preliminarily licensed. Within the metropolis of Culebra, the mayor’s race presently has a margin of simply two votes; in Guánica, 9.
The electoral muddle — coming three months after a disastrous major when individuals waited hours in sweltering warmth for ballots that by no means arrived — additional undermined confidence within the electoral course of and underscored the deep mistrust many residents have lengthy had for the federal government.
“The whole tragedy here is not so much how it turns out in the end, but it’s that I don’t think anyone in Puerto Rico after a failed primary and this current process can really say they trust the system,” stated William Ramírez, the manager director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Puerto Rico, which had sued to permit extra absentee ballots. “We had a large turnout of young people; they voted for the first time, and this was their experience.”
Writer and activist Javier A. Hernandez, wrote for the LA Progressive about what little is being accomplished to safe this 12 months’s election in November.
In recent times, the integrity of Puerto Rican elections has come underneath growing scrutiny. The professional-statehood New Progressive Occasion (PNP), which has a troubling historical past of electoral fraud and corruption, is poised to as soon as once more manipulate the democratic course of within the November 2024 elections. …
The PNP’s observe file is marred by quite a few situations of fraud and corruption, casting an extended shadow over its credibility. In 2011, the PNP unilaterally prohibited electoral alliances, a transfer extensively perceived as a method to undermine opposition events and consolidate energy. This controversial choice was compounded in 2020 when the PNP unilaterally amended the Electoral Regulation to grant themselves intensive authority over Puerto Rico’s Electoral Fee-CEE (the general public entity tasked with administrating and overseeing all electoral occasions in Puerto Rico). These actions have raised critical issues in regards to the integrity of the electoral course of, suggesting that the PNP has systematically manipulated the foundations to keep up its political dominance.
The 2020 elections and the 2024 primaries had been suffering from irregularities, together with vote rigging and administrative chaos, which additional eroded public confidence within the electoral system. Within the 2024 primaries alone, 774 polling stations, accounting for 25.6% of the overall, skilled vital irregularities that might influence numerous electoral campaigns. Such widespread points recommend a deliberate effort to skew ends in favor of the PNP. On June tenth, 2024, in an alarming transfer paying homage to kangaroo courts in authoritarian dictatorships, the Puerto Rico Supreme Courtroom disqualified a number of well-liked opposition candidates (two of whom are elected legislators) of the Citizen’s Victory Occasion (MVC) from being included within the 2024 electoral poll.
With Election Day on the island lower than a month away, it doesn’t seem like this corruption will likely be resolved forward of time. The ultimate outcomes are going to wind up each in courtroom and in protests within the streets.
