Ah, so after the primary/caucus but before and during the RNC/DNC the expats have specific representation, and are considered to be voters from their last state during the general?
IIRC, the three movements (now there is a new one, status quo plus) were roughly equal. I am surprised the independence vote was so low.
I really hope they do become a state… only if they want to. A slim majority on a confusing referendum like this isn’t enough for congress to have a mandate to accept them as a state. But I hope one day they do, because I think it would be great, culturally, for the US.
This is how I feel. Before Congress does anything, Puerto Ricans need to have a clear, unambiguous referendum that asks, “Should Puerto Rico apply for statehood?” And it needs to pass with a solid majority. Accepting them as a state if only like 51% of the people want it is just begging for long-term problems, like in the Basque region of Spain.
Sounds like you guys need something like our Clarity Act. 
I agree, but it does seem to me that they’ve gone from being strongly AGAINST joining the Union to marginally in favor of it rather quickly. It might only take a few more years before the majority in favor of joining becomes very fast. (Then again, it might be a passing fancy and we never hear another word about it.)
I think that if the wheels start turning right now to bring Puerto Rico in, it will take at LEAST 10 years, maybe 20, before it’s a done deal.
FWIW, Puerto Ricans have been citizens of the USA since the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917. So, anyone born in PR is not barred from running for President/V-P on citizenship grounds.
As for my question about redistricting, allow me to clarify. I stay out of the Election forum as it raises my blood pressure, so I don’t know what’s being discussed therein. While I know what the procedure is (will be) for re-allocating representatives when a new state joins the Union, I assume this means some districts will have to be merged. So, what I’m curious about is how the politicians/political parties will react to losing one or more reps in those states that have to surrender a rep(s) to the new state.
I realize that discussing this is only tangentially related to the discussion of possible statehood for PR, so if anyone wants to spin this off to a new thread, I’d be grateful.
It might also be an artifact of a poorly-designed referendum. That’s what I suspect, and why I’d insist of a clear Yes/No vote before anybody starts any wheels turning.
I’d think the reaction would be no different than when the state loses reps to one of the current states as happens after a census.
Yeah… this, exactly. I think the referendum leaves wide open the possibility that a vast majority didn’t actually want to become a state, only a slim majority of those who voted that they wanted the situation to change.
Sigh
Both JRDelirious and I have mentioned and given cites in these and the other two related threads about the poorly designed referendum.
To repeat:
When anyone (even those voting absentee like me) has to vote, they were given a few papers (ballots), including the one for this consult.
That ballot had two questions on it, two different questions.
The vast majority of people who voted for at least one other political candidate also voted in the first question of the ballot (either yes or no).
A significant number of people then choose “statehood” as a status option, and of those status options, it did “win”, but…
A number roughly equal or more to the other 40% who voted for the other two options, left that second question blank.
So, if by “winning” you mean “obtaining less than 50% amongst various options”… then yes… but clearly that option was not chosen by most voters.
This is an official example of the ballot in question.
This is the main page in English of the official results as published by the official Comisión Estatal de Elecciones. Scroll to your left to find the results for the consult.
Also to note, since the vote between the first and second question was not linked, there is no way to know:
How many people who voted “yes” on the first one voted for one of the options in the second, and of those who voted, for which ones?
How many who voted “no” on the first one abstained on the second question (probably because they wanted something else or didn’t like the wording of the definitions)?
Finally, I forget the exact numbers, but if you put the other options together and compared them to the statehood results, the results are very similar to those the last time this status question was asked… back in 1998.
Also, delinking of the questions leaves open even if it means that the pro-Commonwealth political faction is itself split nearly 50/50 between supporters of a broad Devolution of Sovereignty and a continuation of the Statu Quo with mere tweaks.
One of our big problems is that the more popular Status choices in PR are inextricably linked with the two major competitive Electoral Parties. The New Progressive Party (NPP) IS a disparate Statehood coalition, the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) IS a disparate Statu Quo-Plus coalition. Voters sympathetic to one or another path will deny it a vote if they see it as a way to spite the administration or even the dominant faction in the party (see 1998’s NOTA win). The Official PDP asked for Yes-to-Statu-Quo on Q1 and Abstain on Q2, but we know there were Sovereignty voters who do not support PDP policies and we know that people will have voted for change on Q1 but left Q2 blank because they did not see exactly what they wanted.
Part of the problem, right there, is that as it stands right now, the universal consensus in Puerto Rico among pundits, political scientists, academics and street-level political players is that any straight binary Yes/No question on a specific status proposal will be won by the negative. Statehood Y/N? No would win. Independence Y/N? No would win. A proposal for enhanced sovereignty with specific pluses and minuses enumerated (as opposed to generic “It’ll be the best of both worlds” blather)? No.
This one did have one such component, Question 1 was: Satisfied with the Statu Quo? Y/N – No, nearly 54% of the vote.
Back in 1991 there was a referendum on a “Declaration of Democratic Rights” that briefly stated, sought to establish as legal mandate that any future status process would have a certain set of terms be nonnegotiable (keep Spanish as primary official language, keep the PUR Olympic Commitee, always have a multichoice vote, keep US Citizenship, have Congress relinquish territorial power over PR up front, etc. Basically making both Statehood and Independence nonstarters). Who won the Y/N? “No”- Keep our options open.
As mentioned elsewhere, the original idea had been to FIRST have the Y/N vote as to whether people wanted to keep thiongs as they were or change. THEN, with that result in hand, a second vote would have been called upon at a later date as to Change To What. Political considerations and legislative dilly-dallying forced the simultaneous vote and then it was a rush job to get it by this Election Day, and you can tell.
A comment:
Ideals and realities clash – Under ideal UN Resolution principles, continuation of territorial/colonial conditions should not even be an alternative and peoples/nations should man up and choose Full Independence, Sovereign Association, of Full Integration. However under considerations of Real-World US Congressional Politics Since WW2, continuation of territorial conditions is considered the failsafe default and any process should include that choice at some point. The US Political Establishment spent the first 80+ years of its rule over PR doing everything to squelch any tendency towards independence by whatever means necessary. IMO it has now spent the last 30-some trying to avoid having to say out loud “but we did not seriously mean you could be a State, either!” Congress has it easy as they can always say “we will do nothing until y’all are decided and speak with one voice”.
I understand that a majority of people either voted against or left that part of the ballot blank. My problem with your analysis is that you are assuming that everyone who left it blank would have voted against statehood.
Could you provide a link to those numbers you mention?
I don’t like seeing “voted against/didn’t vote” listed as one group. “Didn’t vote” should be counted as “Those who didn’t vote and therefore agree to accept the decision of those who actually cared enough to vote.” IMHO.
That could well be the case, but this is counting not just those didn’t even attempt to vote (didn’t vote in either question, or didn’t even go vote), but those that went and did answer the previous question. Please keep in mind that this option was one of the ones endorsed by one of the major political parties, which was voted in on that same day and now has majority in both legislative houses and the executive branch.
But let’s just say that yes, of those who voted for some status, statehood won. I’m sorry, but you still have about 40% (excluding the large numbers who simply did not vote for it) who clearly stated they preferred something else. And not to mention, that that number may dwindle if the US starts requiring things before accepting statehood.
This will sound snarky, but did you even read my whole post (or previous posts) or looked at the links?
I’ve bee saying that you cannot tell how those who voted on the second question voted in the first question presented on the ballot.
I’ve said this again here and in previous threads about this, and repeat:
Ballot had two questions (even gave an example!)
The questions are not linked, and there has been no effort to figure out how people who voted “yes” or “no” in the first question, voted (or did not vote) in the second question.
The majority of people who voted, did vote that they did not agree with the current status. That part held.
The problem is that in the second question, which asked “which status you prefer”, a significant portion of people did not vote, did not endorse any status option. In this second question, this was the question that, if someone wanted statehood, they should/could vote for it. Since they did not (as this was a bright and shining first option in the ballot), you can guess that either they did not want statehood, or did not want statehood as presented on that ballot.
Here is the link for the 1998 results Petition #3 is the statehood option, which got second place. Roughly over half of the voters chose “none of the above”, which was the option promoted by the same political party that promoted a blank vote on the second question on the most recent consult.
Well then, that suggests that the confusing nature of the referendum was intentional, a deliberate attempt to engineer a pro-statehood vote. Which is another reason not to take the referendum seriously. If statehood was really a popular idea, they wouldn’t need to resort to ethically-dubious tactics like this.
That’s the thinking of many other pundits in PR.
That said, I’m surprised (and I think even the pro-statehood party was surprised) that even discounting the “left in blank” votes, the statehood option only got 60% of the votes. Which means that even if they didn’t count the “blank votes”, they’re left with a significant minority that wouldn’t vote for statehood.
As it stands, the only elected official who would/could promote or represent the results officially, and do any sort of political movement, is the non-voting congressman that Puerto Rico sends to Congress (Pierluisi). All other elected officials are of the opposition party.
And to address the central, burning question all Dopers are wondering about: The union on the US flag would work just fine with rows of 9. 8, 9, 8, 9, and 8 stars, for a total of 51.
Statehood was (apparently) fast rising in popularity in the late 80s/early 90s but then became stuck at a consistent 46% of the total-who-show-up. This last one got 60% of the subtotal-who-chose-something and actually what was not expected was that Sovereign Association would get as many as 33% – the statehood establishment was expecting many more blanks.
For those of us who know Puerto Rican political “inside baseball”, it’s a safe assumption that a vast majority of those who left it blank would have voted against statehood in a straight-up vote. See further on.
As to the undeniable fact that it would help to have a broader, deeper base of support to actually make it compelling upon Congress to act, the evolution of a consensus towards any specific direction is IMO hobbled by the aforementioned direct link with the electoral parties, which means that motion in any direction will inevitably be altered every 8 or 4 years when the corresponding party is voted out of office over regular governing issues and new leaders have to come up to take the helm, AND that, to paraphrase Mitt Romney, there will always be a large percentage out there who just will never support Statehood or Enhanced Sovereignty by itself just because it’s in the wrong party’s platform.
(As to why should people believe that statehood/“sovereignty”/real independence will necessarily enthrone the party that supported it, I blame how the founders of the Commonwealth held on for a total of 28 years in office – 12 before and 16 after.)
Whenever there has been some inkling at some sort of citizen movement towards any direction it has had its platofrm and/or leaders coopted by the establishment parties. (Except for advocates of outright no-excuses Independence, where there’s like a dozen Movements/Parties/Fronts at any given time, adding up on their best year to 5% – and half of them vote strategically for Statu Quo candidates in the actual election anyway)
The other major “domestic” electoral-strategy consideration in this process was to have at least the second question, with statehood in play, be simultaneous with the General Election (when time ran out they had to put both questions together) as a way to draw out the ideological single-issue statehooder “base” because, frankly, the Governor was in the doghouse with a lot of his own party over his austerity measures. Absent the statehood issue he risked a massive landslide shellacking, instead the party just got a respectable close loss and kept a decent-sized legislative minority.