Pablo José Hernandez, the new Resident Commissioner for Puerto Rico, introduced himself to his colleagues in Congress with a “Dear Colleague” letter. The letter is a blatant example of election denial and misrepresentation. Let’s look more closely at this letter and the claims it makes.
After an introductory paragraph, the letter begins,
“This vote, held on November 5, 2024 does not accurately reflect the true will of the Puerto Rican people, as it was neither fair nor inclusive. The ballot did not give voters the option to retain and improve Puerto Rico’s Commonwealth status—a choice I and many others support—and instead limited the options to statehood, independence, and free association.”
Are the claims that this paragraph makes about the 2024 status vote accurate?
Does the 2024 status vote accurately reflect the will of the Puerto Rican people?
In the 2024 status vote, Puerto Rico voters chose statehood — as they have in all four status votes held during this century. It was a democratically held vote and more than 58% of the voters chose statehood among the viable non-territorial status option.
Was the vote fair and inclusive?
The ballot presented three status options, each using the description crafted by its supporters when they negotiated the Puerto Rico Status Act. While it did not include every conceivable option for Puerto Rico’s status — for example, it did not include trading Puerto Rico for Greenland — it included all three non-territorial options possible under the U.S. Constitution.
Did the ballot give voters the choice to retain “commonwealth” status?
No, the current territorial status, known to many as “commonwealth,” is not on the ballot. As Congress already determined, continuing to be a territory was soundly rejected in 2012 and again in 2017.
In 2012, there was a direct question: Do you want to remain a territory? 54% of voters said no, they did not want to continue to be a territory. In 2017, a mere 7,048 voters, 1.35% of the ballots cast, chose to remain a territory. Puerto Rico does not want to be a territory, and is currently governed as a possession of the United States without the consent of the governed, a central tenet of the United States Constitution.
Did the ballot give the voters a choice to improve “commonwealth” status?
The idea of improving or enhancing the commonwealth to create a new, unprecedented status option combining elements of statehood and independence is a fantasy that has been popular since the 1950s. When Puerto Rico’s constitution was approve day Congress, the Resident Commissioner works hard to persuade the federal government that Puerto Rico was no longer just a territory, but was something entirely new. The federal government never agreed to this. Indeed, all three branches of government have said over and over that there is no possibility of creating a new status. The U.S. Constitution, which is the law of the land, allows the United States to include states and territories, or to have relationships with independent nations. That’s all.
The letter continues
The letter goes on to call commonwealth supporters “disenfranchised.” This is a misuse of the term. Puerto Rico voters are truly disenfranchised in presidential elections because they cannot vote. Not having everything you want on a ballot is not disenfranchisement. It claims that :commonwealth supporters may have voted their second choice, since the imaginary option of improving the commonwealth wasn’t on the ballot. Indeed, they may have done that. Anyone who wants an option not offered on the ballot will sensibly choose their preference among the real choices available.
Hernndez also claimed that commonwealth supporters left their ballots blank. Perhaps they did , but there are many other reasons some might leave a ballot blank. Perhaps they wanted to reunify with Spain or to join Florida to make a larger state. Maybe they could not make up their minds on a preferred status or felt that six plebiscites was plenty and didn’t want to participate. We actually have no idea what a blank vote might mean, which is a primary reason that they can’t be counted.
There were also “protest” votes. Again, we don’t know what those voters had in mind.
The letter then continues, “The official certification from the State Elections Commission claims that statehood won with 58% of the vote, but this percentage excludes blank and protested ballots from the calculation. When all ballots are accounted for, support for statehood drops to 49.1%. ”
The idea of taking into account blank ballots and wrongly voted “protest” ballots vs. people who chose among the legitimate non-territory options being offered is absurd and undemocratic. The ballots clearly stated that blank or improper ballots would not be counted. It is not possible that voters imagined they were voting if they left a blank ballot — let alone that they meant to vote for “commonwealth.”
Do the math
It is also worth noting that 620,782 people voted for statehood. 530,540 voted for Hernandez. If he doesn’t consider the statehood votes sufficient, he should not consider his own election sufficient either. He had 43.5% of the vote. The total for statehood, even if we accepted the ridiculous recounting of meaningless blank votes, is higher than that.
Nicholas Maduro, Bad Bunny and other influential people spoke against statehood. Every possible effort was made to get out the anti-statehood vote. And yet statehood won — again — by a clear majority. Free association, even though it offered an unrealistic claim that voters could keep their U.S. citizenship under this status, received 29.6% of the vote. Independence received a mere 11.8%. While this is 6 percentage points higher than previous votes for independence, the votes for statehood are also 6 percentage points higher than the previous referendum’s statehood votes. “Commonwealth” supporters are just as likely to have voted for these other two viable options as their second choice as they are to have voted for statehood.
It may be true that “commonwealth” supporters divided their votes among the three possible options when their fantasy choice was not on the ballot. If so, statehood was 29 points ahead of the next highest favorite, and 47 points ahead of the least favorite. Unless we take the frankly dishonest position of imagining that everyone who left a blank or spoiled ballot intended to vote for “commonwealth,” the results are extremely clear. For the fourth time in this century, statehood won.
Achieving prosperity
In his introduction, Hernandez claims that he is focused on economic growth. The fundamental truth is that the resolution of Puerto Rico’s territory status with the inherent inequality and disenfranchisement that it imposes on the island is the biggest systemic obstacle to Puerto Rico’s achieving sustained economic growth, increasing investment and achieving prosperity.
Far from ignoring the status issue, as Hernandez urged his colleagues to do, Congress should recognize that admitting Puerto Rico as a state is an essential priority for Puerto Rico and the United States. Reach out to your legislators and ask them to get on the right side of history.
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