Thousands of votes found a week after election

Frances Robles

Nearly 200 boxes of uncounted votes have surfaced in Puerto Rico, a full week after voters went to the polls to choose their governor, legislators and mayors across the island, dealing another black eye to the mistrusted government.

The discovery of uncounted ballots could have sweeping effects in close races around the island, in particular the tight contest for mayor of San Juan, where the sudden influx of new votes could force a recount. Officials acknowledged that the votes could change the results of particularly narrow races, which had already been preliminarily certified. In the city of Culebra, the mayor’s race currently has a margin of just two votes; in Guánica, nine.

The electoral muddle — coming three months after a disastrous primary in which people waited hours in sweltering heat for ballots that never arrived — further undermined confidence in the electoral process and underscored the deep distrust that many residents have long had for the government.

“The whole tragedy here is not so much how it turns out in the end, but it’s that I don’t think anyone in Puerto Rico after a failed primary and this current process can really say they trust the system,” said William Ramírez, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Puerto Rico, which had sued to allow more absentee ballots.

It was unclear how many votes the boxes contained.

On Wednesday, the president of Puerto Rico’s State Electoral Council, Francisco Rosado Colomer, said that it could be between 3,000 and 4,000 votes.