According to this story, with most of the vote counted, 97% of Puerto Ricans who voted favor statehood. Polls closed at 3 p.m. Puerto Rico time.
UPDATE: see this story.
According to this story, with most of the vote counted, 97% of Puerto Ricans who voted favor statehood. Polls closed at 3 p.m. Puerto Rico time.
UPDATE: see this story.
Sadly it looks like over 75% of voters didn’t cast their ballots. That’s down considerably from 2012’s referendum.
Abstention = I Don’t Care. Thus it’s implicit backing of the outcome. There’s no critically thinking human being in congress that can reject this as anything less than a call to admit to the union.
It is a clear mandate from those who went to the polls. The American citizens from Puerto Rico demand equal treatment under the law. Puerto Ricans have been American citizens for 100 years but by living in a territory our citizenship is incomplete, we don’t have voting representation in Congress and we don’t participate in the election of the president.
Those who oppose statehood refused to participate simply because they knew they would lose.
As to the turnout, two things:
(1) Those who chose not to vote allowed those who did to decide for them.
(2) The 2012 referendum was held simultaneously with the general election, that explains the difference.
The important thing is that Congress now has the responsibility to respond to these results and admit Puerto Rico as the 51st state of the United States.
Full results in English
http://resultados2017.ceepur.org/Noche_del_Evento_78/index.html#en/default/CONSULTA_DESCOLONIZACION_Resumen.xml
Given the way our country has been declining over the past couple of decades, Puerto Rico might have been better off voting for independence. But if they want to be the 51st state of the Fascist States of America, that’s their choice too, and it behooves Congress, if indeed Congress possesses enough decency to respond, to grant Puerto Rico’s request.
@Joshua H. Pretty agree but I discover reason this and last referendums are take off because they are Non-binding referendums that will get them nowhere if US government seriously gives f@ck about their territory.
Puerto Rico will never become a US state, and will become an independent country sometime in the next few decades. At least that’s what my crystal ball is telling me.
If Puerto Rico were to become a state, would they be a red state, a blue state, or a swing state? That would determine statehood more than any referendum.
There was an explicitly organized boycott effort that included all of the anti-statehood voters and even a subtantial minority of otherwise pro-statehood voters. Maybe without that you can normally say turnout doesn’t matter, but in the face of such a boycott a turnout of 23% (on an island where normal turnout is around 80%) is a failed referendum and the results are meaningless. No action will be taken based on this result.