Puerto Rican politics became engulfed on Monday in the confusing aftermath of a chaotic primary election that was partially suspended over the weekend when paper ballots failed to reach voting precincts, making it impossible for many people to vote.
The Puerto Rico Supreme Court agreed to consider an emergency petition filed by two candidates for governor demanding that the votes cast during Sunday’s primary be counted, even if the rest of the election takes place at a future date.
Some voters waited for hours in the sweltering August heat, risking exposure to the coronavirus, which has surged in Puerto Rico. Trucks that were intended to bring ballots to far-flung corners of the island remained idle on Election Day in San Juan, the capital. By 2 p.m., the electoral commission suspended the vote in polling places where no ballots had arrived, and rescheduled the remainder of the vote for the following Sunday.
Varying explanations were offered for the delay. Some accused the government of missing deadlines for submitting candidate information to the printer; others said that the election commission had lost members who were most experienced in running elections. Some polling places got ballots but not enough.
A year ago, the Supreme Court hearing the challenge to Sunday’s suspension was forced to decide who would succeed the former governor, Ricardo A. Rosselló, after he resigned in the wake of huge protests.
What protesters really wanted then was a new election. But they accepted that Wanda Vázquez, the former secretary of justice, would take over until this coming November. Sunday’s primary was supposed to determine which candidates from Puerto Rico’s two main political parties would compete for the job.
But the decision to suspend balloting by a week, made in consultation with political party leaders, caused widespread confusion. Candidates cried foul, openly disagreeing with their party leadership, and questioned how ballots already cast would be secured and counted as photos of vote tallies from some of those precincts appeared on social media. One candidate for governor filed a lawsuit and was later joined by another candidate. A third candidate then filed a separate lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union also sued.
“The decision to paralyze the primary process was illegal,” Pedro R. Pierluisi, the candidate who initially sued, said in a statement late on Sunday. By Monday morning, he had appealed to the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. He is seeking the nomination for governor for the ruling New Progressive Party, which supports Puerto Rican statehood. Also in the running is Ms. Vázquez, the incumbent governor.
In a wild sequence of events last year, Ms. Vázquez became governor after Mr. Rosselló resigned and appointed Mr. Pierluisi to replace him, after which the Supreme Court ruled that the appointment had been improper and Mr. Pierluisi had to step down.
On Monday, Mr. Pierluisi was joined in his lawsuit to count the primary votes by Senator Eduardo Bhatia of the Popular Democratic Party, which supports Puerto Rico’s current status as a territory.
Not all the candidates agreed that Sunday’s votes should count. Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz of San Juan said that ballots cast early in person or by mail, and in prisons and nursing homes, should count but that people who voted on Sunday should have to vote again. Mayor Charlie Delgado of Isabela, a coastal town in northwestern Puerto Rico, wanted the primary to resume on Tuesday or Wednesday and sued late on Monday.
“Nobody foresaw this situation,” said Edgardo Román, president of the Puerto Rico Bar Association. “We face great uncertainty, because now we depend on what happens in the courts.”
In the past, Puerto Rico’s electoral system had been considered exemplary, drawing observers from across Latin America, several officials said. Now, even the number of precincts that did not receive ballots on Sunday was unclear, as were the precise reasons for the delay. Senator Carmelo J. Ríos, a New Progressive who supports Mr. Pierluisi, estimated that 40 percent of the island’s 110 precincts did not receive ballots. María Dolores Santiago, who represents the New Progressive Party on the electoral commission, said only 47 precincts did.
The federally appointed fiscal oversight board that controls Puerto Rico’s finances blasted the election as “dysfunctional.” The head of the electoral commission, Juan Ernesto Dávila, under pressure to resign, said he would be willing to leave his post, but not before seeing the primary through to the end.
“Until Saturday, we thought we were going to be able to get the ballots out,” Mr. Dávila told Telemundo on Monday, though he offered little explanation of why the ballot distribution had failed so dramatically. He said all ballots cast on Sunday were being securely kept under lock and key.
The electoral system had been perhaps the last remaining institution in which Puerto Ricans, battered by years of bankruptcy, corruption, government incompetence and natural disasters, still had any confidence. By Sunday night, much of that trust had evaporated. Amid escalating public outrage, Puerto Ricans returned to banging their pots and pans at night in protest.
“This is a travesty,” said Ms. Cruz, who gained international fame after she publicly denounced the Trump administration for botching the response to Hurricane Maria in 2017. “No matter who wins, no matter who loses, there’s always going to be a cloud over this election.”
The closely watched race for governor is the first since the hurricane and since Mr. Rosselló resigned after a scandal over leaked private phone chats.
Roberto Iván Aponte, who represents the Puerto Rican Independence Party on the electoral commission, blamed Sunday’s debacle on budget cuts and on an election reform law that gave Mr. Dávila, the commission president, more power. After the law was passed in June, Mr. Dávila reorganized the commission and did away with vice presidents who had years of experience in conducting elections, Mr. Aponte said.
The commission then missed deadlines to send the names and photographs of candidates to the ballot printer, he said. “It didn’t send the information on time. Obviously, the ballots were not going to be printed on time.”
Ms. Santiago, the New Progressive electoral commissioner, said the deadlines had to be pushed back because of the pandemic.
Mr. Dávila did not respond to an interview request from The New York Times. Neither did the commissioner from the Popular Democratic Party. Mr. Dávila told El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico’s biggest newspaper, that the parties asked for more ballots last week, which changed the printing order at the last minute. Ms. Santiago said the new order was necessary because some of the New Progressive ballots contained errors.
The printing company, Printech, did not respond to requests for comment from The Times but told El Nuevo Día that it complied with the commission’s orders for some 8 million ballots, though the commission had not yet paid the $2.8 million that was due.
“If we had received the ballots some 12 hours earlier, perhaps 24 — I would say 12 — we could have gotten them out,” Mr. Dávila told El Nuevo Día.
No one on the commission considered trying to postpone Sunday’s election, even as the delivery of the ballots from the printer kept getting delayed, Ms. Santiago said.
In the municipality of Sabana Grande, Humberto José Mercader Pérez, a 28-year-old engineer, said he did not even try to vote after his parents showed up at their polling place early and found out that no ballots had arrived.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Mr. Mercader, recalling how his grandfather used to volunteer to work the polls on Election Day. “I kept saying, ‘This can’t be happening.’ That the electoral commission would be unable to do the job for which it exists was unfathomable.”
“What happened yesterday is going to lead to even more mistrust,” he added.
Even in precincts that did get ballots, not everyone who wanted to was able to vote. Griselle Ramírez Garratón, a 70-year-old caterer in San Juan, waited two hours in line before giving up.
“I told my daughter, ‘I can’t do this anymore, I’m 70, and I can’t anymore,’” she said. “The worst experience in my 52 years of voting. I have voted since I was 18 and never missed one.”
Griselle Vilá Ramírez, her 35-year-old daughter, went back to the polling place to try to cast her ballot, but she was told they had run out.
“It’s disappointing,” she said. “I would have loved to exercise my right to vote. We didn’t wait for two hours just for fun.”
Her mother said she would try again this coming Sunday.
Edmy Ayala contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
