On August 27, U.S. District Court Judge Jose A. Fuste ordered the Puerto Rican Election Commission to print ballots in English as well as Spanish. The Commonwealth had been planning to print ballots only in Spanish. The Commission argued that the Voting Rights Act doesn’t apply to Puerto Rico, but the court disagreed. The Voting Rights Act requires that language minorities amounting to at least 5% must have their own language on ballots. The plaintiff presented evidence to show that 14% of the population of Puerto Rico uses English as their first language. The case is Diffenderfer v Gomez Colon, no. 08-1918. Here is the decision, thanks to Professor Eugene Volokh.
After the ruling, the Commission said it would be impossible to comply in time for the November 4 election. The Commission is appealing to the 1st Circuit. Puerto Rico this year elects a Governor, a Commonwealth Legislature, and a representative to the U.S. House of Representatives. Puerto Rico does not vote for president in the general election, although it did hold a Democratic presidential primary this year and in certain earlier years.
UPDATE: the case number in the First Circuit is 08-2107.
Resident Commissioner is what the position is called not Representative.
I know, that’s why I didn’t capitalize “Representative”. A Resident Commissioner is a representative.
I think the bigger implication here is that the next status referendum won’t suffer as much from the confusing Spanish wording of the last one.