Puerto Rico halts primary voting in centers lacking ballots
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico on Sunday was forced to partially suspend voting for primaries marred by a lack of ballots as officials called on the president of the U.S. territory’s elections commission to resign.
The primaries for voting centers that had not received ballots by early afternoon are expected to be rescheduled, while voting would continue elsewhere, the commission said.
“I have never seen on American soil something like what has just been done here in Puerto Rico. It’s an embarrassment to our government and our people,” said Pedro Pierluisi, who is running against Gov. Wanda Vázquez, to become the nominee for the pro-statehood New Progressive Party.
Meanwhile, Vázquez called the situation “a disaster” and demanded the resignation of the president of the elections commission.
“They made the people of Puerto Rico, not the candidates, believe that they were prepared,” she said. “Today the opposite was evident. They lied.”
A federal control board that oversees Puerto Rico’s finances issued a statement saying the “dysfunctional” voting process was unacceptable and blamed it on what it said was inefficiency by the elections commission.
The unprecedented situation comes as voters ventured out amid a spike in COVID-19 cases across Puerto Rico, an island of 3.2 million people that has reported more than 12,800 probable cases, more than 8,500 confirmed cases and at least 274 deaths.
Gireliz Zambrana, a 31-year-old federal employee, worried about the number of people gathered at a voting center in Río Grande as they huddled together while waiting for it to open.
“They were trying to get away from the sun,” he said, adding that he never got to cast his vote.
The president of the governor’s party, Thomas Rivera Schatz, along with the president of the main opposition Popular Democratic Party, held an unusual joint press conference and said they agreed the remaining primaries should be held on Aug. 16, a move that Vázquez said she supported. The two parties are both holding their primary elections with the winning nominees among six gubernatorial candidates in November’s general election.
Other politicians argued that the entire primary be scrapped and held at another date.
An incredulous Schatz noted that there were still trucks with ballots inside parked at the commission’s headquarters as they spoke there on Sunday afternoon.
“The question is, why haven’t they left?” he said.