In the fourth status referendum of the 21st century, statehood has won again. Nearly 60% of the votes on the status question favored statehood, a clear majority once again. This result joins the results of 2012, 2017, and 2020 to confirm that Puerto Rico is ready for the rights and responsibilities of statehood. It is ludicrous that the Island is being required to demonstrate again and again that statehood is the majority position, but there should be no further uncertainty in anyone’s mind.
Unfortunately, the democratic self-determination process is not enough to accomplish admission for the great state of Puerto Rico. Congress must take action. Congress can admit a territory as a state at any time with a simple majority vote. These votes have sometimes been close in the past, but close does not count in U.S. votes. The majority wins.
Attempts to discredit the vote
We are already seeing attempts to discredit the statehood vote.
57% of voters chose statehood, but 16% of voters left that question blank, so some are claiming that a majority did not vote for statehood. This is not how voting works. People who leave a question blank didn’t vote against statehood — they simply didn’t vote.
The same argument is being made using people who didn’t vote at all. Non-voters are not counted in a vote. Consider the U.S. presidential vote taken on the same day. Some states had a 50% turnout, some had up to 73%. For example, Florida saw 66% of voters turn out and Trump received 56% of the votes. Trump therefore got just under 37% of the potential votes. By the logic being used by anti-statehood factions, Trump did not get a majority in Florida — or probably in any state, but that logic. But Trump won Florida, got the electoral college votes, and will be the next President of the United States. People who do not vote, including those who leave a ballot blank, simply don’t count. They threw away their opportunity to make their views known.
We also see that the statehood party candidate, Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, has won the race for Governor of Puerto Rico. With 91% of votes counted, in a five-way race, Gonzalez-Colon took 39% of the votes. In previous elections when the status vote and the governor’s vote didn’t match, that has been used as a method to discredit the vote. This time, the match between the candidate for statehood and the status referendum vote for statehood should make it even more clear that statehood is the majority position.
Congress must act
C ingress has been kicking the status question along the road for decades saying that the people of Puerto Rico must decide what they want. The people of Puerto Rico have decided. The majority want statehood. Congress can admit Puerto Rico immediately.
However, the Puerto Rico Status Act is pending in both the House and the Senate. If Congress is not ready to admit Puerto Rico with a majority vote, they can pass the Puerto Rico Status Act, a bill created by a coalition of Puerto Rican leaders from different parties. Tell your representatives to take action now!
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