# Presidential primaries in Puerto Rico? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 4, 2016, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911 "2016-03-04T11:55:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bomberswarm2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c37758/32.png) [@bomberswarm2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bomberswarm2)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/1 "2016-03-04T11:55:16Z")
I was looking through results, and it showed that Puerto Rico voted on a primary? How can they vote for a nominee if they aren’t a U.S state, and therefore can’t vote? ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/2 "2016-03-04T12:04:08Z")
> [@bomberswarm2](#): > > How can they vote for a nominee if they aren’t a U.S state, and therefore can’t vote? There is no law saying that party conventions can only have delegates from states. If a party wants to have delegates elected by people in Puerto Rico, that’s its right. They have regular elections in Puerto Rico, just not for presidential electors or voting members of Congress (because the US Constitution says that only states get those). ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/3 "2016-03-04T12:45:16Z")
Non-states that send delegates to the party conventions include: [ul] [li]American Samoa[/li][li]Democrats Abroad[/li][li]District of Columbia[/li][li]Guam[/li][li]Northern Marianas[/li][li]Puerto Rico[/li][li]Virgin Islands[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/4 "2016-03-04T13:40:27Z")
As you can tell from the “Democrats Abroad” that was for the Dem party. The Rep party doesn’t allocate delegates for Republicans Abroad. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/5 "2016-03-04T17:04:24Z")
The parties are private entities. They could permit all Italian citizens residing in Italy to vote if they wanted to. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/6 "2016-03-06T18:58:36Z")
Also: The number of delegates from the territories are apportioned as if from a state of equivalent population by the Democratic Party, not by the GOP. Our primary today is an interesting exercise slightly different from other ocassions. The PR primaries have been symbolic formalities save for a period in the 1980s when they were used as proxies for local factions to get the backing of national leaders. Ever since the 90s the local GOP Brahmins normally had the whole thing in the bag for the establishment candidate well in advance; and the Dems’ local organizers would hold it really, really late in the cycle to collect the additional-delegate bonus. This changed in our recent times in late May 2008 when the protracted Clinton/Obama race got here with neither having clinched the delegate count, so they actually campaigned. Fat lot of good we got from it, anyway (Hillary won). Then in March 2012 Romney still needed some clear victories to put the bullet in Santorum so, again, we got active campaigning and rallys from Romney. This year as usual the Dems are waiting to very late in the period (June 5) . Now, this year budgets are extremely tight at the Elections Commission and the sitting legislature and administration, which are hostile to anything that may be seen as approaching statehood, did not make any election-year additional appropriation for presidential primaries; hell they didn’t even make the full usual additional appropriations for the \*local \*primaries! So it was left to be run with whatever the Commission and the Parties could scrounge so the Dems went the caucus route and the GOP’s ended up as a much abbreviated exercise: polling places were cut down to only one per electoral precinct, instead of at least one per ward – this means 110 polling places instead of over 1200. It is expected this will mean a meager turnout, well under 30,000 total, just through lack of capacity. The Puerto Rico GOP have always been Eastern Republicans and the Establishment Leadership were steadfast Bush people since GHWB/41 was first running in 1980, due to the Bushes’ outreach to latino voters and their overt support for statehood. There has been an upsurge in “conservative Republican” types among the rank & file since 2000, over religious/guns/security angles but no real “Tea Party” rise. This time around they were as usual with Bush coronation but that went pear-shaped on them so they had to scramble and use the backup Florida connection to line up behind Rubio. Endorsing Trump or Cruz was out of the question, and Carson was the only other one who came all the way over here to reach out to the local leaders with explicit support for statehood. Some Trump spokesmen complained the whole thing was too weighed in the direction of Bush first, then Rubio now. Everyone else on the island and afloat on littoral waters just stared and asked “Really? You’re a Puerto Rican _Trump_ spokesman?” For reference: Puerto Rican internal elections are NOT run R/D - the local parties are aligned by advocacy for statehood/statu quo/independence plus the ocassional labor or green “fourth party”. The pro-statehood party, in turn, contains within it the leadership and most followers of the local GOP branch. The Democrats, OTOH, are divided between the statehood and statu-quo parties. Both those parties also contain large segments who are not aligned in national politics. The most fun part of this year’s Primary – ever since the repeal of prohibition, election and primary days in PR are “dry”, no alcohol sales except in hotels and tourist-zone restaurants for in-house consumption. \* Has been so during every single vote of any kind since.\* Yet, when on Thursday afternoon the required announcement was released to commercial establishments about the restrictions on alcohol sales… \*\* Everyone. Lost. Their. Minds.\*\* People and organizations cried out that there were public events with booze already programmed. Sports venues cancelled games. Legislators filing emergency bills. Wailing and gnashing of teeth. What the hell was different? Well, my theory is that because it was expected to be a small event, everyone else expected that the dry rule would be waived on some sort of pulled-out-of-their-ass grounds that it was not a “real” election. Plus there’s the partisan element, too: a legislature hostile to statehood-like policies was not about to take action to keep anyone from being inconvenienced by the Republicans. Resolutions and motions and urgent filings have been going on for the last 3 days, loopholes being sought and countered, the ban was on, then off, then back on, then back off, and this was not yet resoved as late as 9:45 AM today! Like I said, this was programmed since last year, everyone had plenty of time to adjust. Has been fun seeing how people get bent out of shape for not being able to pick up a six-pack at the package store for 21 hours. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/7 "2016-03-06T19:27:36Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The parties are private entities. They could permit all Italian citizens residing in Italy to vote if they wanted to. Given the dismay Republican party leaders are showing over Trump’s imminent nomination, they’re probably regretting not having scheduled any primaries in Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/8 "2016-03-06T21:25:34Z")
Puerto Rico also has their own Olympic teams. The US permits that and it’s OK with the IOC. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/9 "2016-03-06T22:02:14Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Puerto Rico also has their own Olympic teams. The US permits that and it’s OK with the IOC. The other way around, I believe. Ever since the early days of the Modern Olympics, the overseas colonies of the “Powers” that were not politically incorporated thereto have been entitled to separate participation. Olympic Committees are, again, private NGOs not government agencies (at least legally) and USOC abides by IOC rules. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/10 "2016-03-06T23:18:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Given the dismay Republican party leaders are showing over Trump’s imminent nomination, they’re probably regretting not having scheduled any primaries in Mexico. Yeah, but the Berlusconi contingent woulda been Yuge I tells ya!. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/11 "2016-03-07T00:35:26Z")
Results of the[Puerto Rico Republican Presidential Primary](http://presidenciales16.ceepur.org/) (official page) The ballots had already been orfered before the start of Febriary so a whole bunch of dropouts were still on the page, confusing people. (Now I’m wondering if this was Fiorina’s best result…) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/12 "2016-03-07T00:40:26Z")
Sweet. And a belated thanks for that detailed explanation in post #6. That’s the kind of real-world info with deep background that’s so darn hard to find online otherwise, even in legit reference sources. Something’s not quite right there. “Other” got roughly 1400 of 38,000 for 0.04% per the site. Meanwhile Chris Christie got 20 of 38,000 for 0.05% Nope, Other got 4%. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/13 "2016-03-07T00:48:11Z")
Late add: Cruz only beat Other 2:1. Other beat Kasich ~3:1. And Other beat Kasich, Fiorina, Bush. Carson, Huckabee, Paul, Santorum, Gilmore, & Christie _combined_! Such fun. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/presidential-primaries-in-puerto-rico/747911/14 "2016-03-07T01:12:06Z")
Confusing, yes. As broken down at the bottom, “other” included 857 blank ballots, 578 invalid ballots (overvotes, damaged ballots, people writing _“cabrones”_ across the columns), 17 challenged ballots and 14 write-ins. So 14 write-ins is 0.036%. Under recent PR case law votes for nobody don’t count for percentages when there are seats to be apportioned (as in the case of delegates). So now it gets even better. _ **Blank** _ still convincingly beat Kasich, and it still outnumbered everyone else short of Kasich. The 1.37% total turnout signals a proud moment of acting like regular US voters 😃