Are Puerto Rico’s Elections Trustworthy?

A new article from Centro de Periodismo Investigativo de Puerto Rico makes some bold claims: “EXPANSIVE VOTE-STEALING SCHEME CORRUPTS PUERTO RICO’S ELECTORAL SYSTEM,” shouts the headline, and the report goes on to describe “complex and large schemes” designed to corrupt elections in Puerto Rico.

The first aspect of the “scheme” described by the CPI is voting under the names of deceased individuals. Puerto Rico, like all the states except North Dakota, has the practice of regularly purging the voter rolls of the names of people who have not voted. The goal of this process is to remove people who have died or moved.

There are also other measures taken to remove deceased people from the voter rolls. The procedures vary. In most states, the office of the Secretary of State or the Health Department regularly informs the voter registration office of all registered deaths, and the deceased voters’ names are removed. Depending on the state, this may take place weekly, monthly, or quarterly. A few states require action within a set number of days, while a few states rely on family members to notify the voter commission. Different states require different levels of confirmation to remove names.

Certainly, at any given time there will be some number of names on voter registration lists which are not the names of living persons. NPR reports that 1.8 million deceased people were listed on voter registration lists across the country as of 2012, as well as three million who had moved. People assume that registering to vote in their new home will somehow cancel their registration in their old home, but that doesn’t actually happen. “There’s little evidence that this has led to widespread voter fraud,” NPR concludes.

CPI holds that Puerto Rico’s electoral commission is not only behind on purging nonvoters from the rolls, but is also complicit in placing votes in the names of the deceased voters. “They grab the infamous lists of deceased or those who didn’t show up on Election Day, clear the lists, and fill out the ballots,” the report quotes an unnamed source as saying. The report also claims, without named sources or substantiating evidence, that unnamed people regularly fill out and submit absentee ballots for people who have moved or who are elderly and infirm.

These claims echo those made in numerous states, claiming widespread voter fraud with no evidence. Legal cases have been brought regarding these claims, and in most cases have been dismissed. The Brennan Center for Justice has examined these claims  and made the following statement: “The Brennan Center’s seminal report The Truth About Voter Fraud conclusively demonstrated that most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless and that most of the few remaining allegations reveal irregularities and other forms of election misconduct. Numerous other studies, including one commissioned by the Trump administration, have reached the same conclusion.”

The CPI report does not meet the standard of evidence that would allow readers to conclude that the situation they are describing is different from the similar claims made on the mainland.

The CPI report does include some criminal actions. For example, an attorney who has been convicted of fraud was said by a named source to have sent people masquerading as representatives of the territory’s electoral commission to a nursing home to elicit personal information from residents. The report also includes some criminal cases related to voting, which are under investigation or prosecution.

The CPI report quotes a political party official as saying, “There are many cases. This has turned into a situation where the best cheater wins.” However, investigation and prosecution of irregular voting does not suggest that the electoral system, is dysfunctional; if anything, the opposite is true.

Finally, the report discusses early and absentee voting. While many states allow early and absentee voting for any reason, or as the Arkansas law describes it, “without an excuse,” Puerto Rico requires voters to prove that they need special accommodations. Examples of these accommodations include permission for voters 60 and older to vote early, and for those with mobility issues to vote in their homes. Puerto Rico has an unusually large elderly population and higher levels of disabilities than the states, which makes these accommodations especially important for Puerto Rican voters.

The CPI report quotes a spokesman for the Independence Party as claiming that these accommodations are abused. His evidence was that Governor Pierluisi, who is over 60, said he would request a mail-in ballot. We have not been able to confirm this claim, but it would scarcely amount to evidence of voter fraud even if it were true.

Representatives of other political parties also told the CPI that they were worried about voter fraud with mail-in ballots, again with no evidence that it actually took place. Pew Research has documented the fact that many U.S. voters have these fears, in spite of almost no evidence that mail-in voting leads to fraud.

The report concludes with this statement about a spokesperson from the election commission: “When asked if she could guarantee a fraud-free election on November 5, she said: ‘The word guarantee is what everyone seeks, and it’s the word I’d truly like to say. This president is committed to conducting an election event with transparency, with all the guarantees the Electoral Code provides us.’”

The use of emotional language, unnamed sources, vague generalizations from political parties, and unsubstantiated accusations makes the CPI report inflammatory rather than informational. Attempts to discredit the electoral commission, the process of voting, and the counting of votes before the election can be damaging.

Democracy relies on votes from the public and on the agreement of the public that those votes can be trusted. Without confidence in the electoral process, it is possible that voters will choose to stay away from the elections or to dispute the results.

It is in the nature of political campaigns to make accusations and to play on voters’ emotions. It is not appropriate to do so with news reports.

Puerto Rico’s elections are conducted according to the laws of the territory, and we find no credible evidence that elections on the Island are untrustworthy.