Last Sunday, Puerto Ricans were supposed to vote in the primary gubernatorial elections to determine who would be the candidates on the ballot in November. Following former governor Ricardo A. Rosselló’s resignation after huge protests last year, Wanda Vázquez, former secretary of justice, took over the position until this coming November. Sunday’s primary was to determine the long-awaited question of who would be competing for the job.
But as voters showed up to their voting precincts, risking exposure to the coronavirus because votes could only be cast in person according to the new electoral code, chaos ensued. Some precincts received no ballots and closed, others received ballots hours after voting was scheduled to begin, others did not receive enough to accommodate the amount of voters and ran out halfway through the day. By 2 p.m., the Electoral Commission suspended the vote in polling places without ballots and rescheduled the remainder for the following Sunday.
Voters, and candidates, immediately demanded answers as confusion spread throughout the island. Quiñones Torres, along with Puerto Rico’s ACLU chapter, is suing the Elections Commission President, Juan Ernesto Dávila, claiming that the decision to close polls in the middle of the election was unconstitutional.
ACLU attorney Mayte Bayolo-Alonso said that there is no “legally-biding law, resolution or ruling” allowing members of the Elections Commission, who are “unelected officials who are part of an executive agency,” to suspend an election. She warned of irreparable damage, including what, according to Bayolo-Alonso, amounted to voter suppression. “What we’re trying to do now is mitigate that damage and make sure that those who were left out can exercise the right to vote,” she explained.
Baylo-Alonso also criticized the Puerto Rican government’s recent approval of the new electoral code amid the coronavirus pandemic, calling the approval a red flag. The new code changed the rules of the election just 130 days before the general election, giving voters and agencies overseeing the electoral process little time to learn the new rules and abide by them.
Candidates also filed lawsuits against the Commission. Candidate Pedro R. Pierluisi of the New Progressive Party, who later joined his lawsuit with Senator Eduardo Bhatia of the Popular Democratic Party, called the decision to paralyze the primary process illegal and appealed to the Puerto Rican Supreme Court.
The Commission’s response did not clear up the uncertainty. President Dávila, who is under pressure to resign, said he would be willing to do so but would see the primary election through first. In a Telemundo interview, he explained that, until Saturday, the Commission believed it would be able to get the ballots out to all voting precincts, but failed to offer an explanation for the dramatic failure. He said that the ballots already cast were being kept under lock and key and watched by the authorities.
The botched elections caused many voters to lose faith in their electoral system. In the past, the Puerto Rican electoral system has been considered exemplary, counting with a 70 percent voter participation rate and attracting observers from all over Latin America. After years of bankruptcy, corruption scandals, and natural disasters, the electoral system was one of the last institutions in which Puerto Ricans had confidence. On Sunday night, the island’s residents showed their frustration and outrage by banging their pots and pans in protest.
“This is a travesty,” Mayor of San Juan Carmen Yulín Cruz said. “No matter who wins, no matter who loses, there’s always going to be a cloud over this election.”
Voter Humberto José Mercader Pérez expressed his disappointment. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “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.” He added that what had happened would lead to even more mistrust.
70-year-old Griselle Ramírez Garratón waited two hours in line to vote, and eventually had to give up. “The worst experience in my 52 years of voting,” she said. “I have voted since I was 18 and never missed one.”
On Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court ordered the count to be paralyzed until the case was resolved. That same night, in a highly anticipated ruling, the Court unanimously ordered the election be resumed next Sunday. The Court also ruled that those votes that were able to be cast would be valid and counted and prohibited the release of preliminary results before the conclusion of the election next Sunday.
In their decision, the Court wrote that the Elections Commission “failed to comply with their duty to coordinate, direct and manage the total celebration of a scheduled primaries in violation of the constitutional postulates and the electoral regulations.” Commission President Dávila issued a statement saying the agency would “act in accordance with the determination made by the Supreme Court. It is our duty to guarantee the culmination of the primary electoral process.”
Photo: Ricardo Dominguez/Unsplash