Criticism Edit Critics said that voters who favor a developed version of the current status of Puerto Rico (a commonwealth which is part of the United States with internal self-government) had no alternatives on the ballot. As a result, leaders of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) instructed such voters to leave the second portion of the ballot blank, or to invalidate the ballot.[27]
Because there were almost 500,000 blank ballots, creating confusion as to the voters' true desire, it provided Congress an opportunity to ignore the vote, which it did.[28]
History professor Luis Agrait explained the result in this manner to CNN: "If you assume those blank votes are anti-statehood votes, the true result for the statehood option would be less than 50%."[29] Considered as a percentage of the total number of votes cast in the first ballot, 44% voted in favor of statehood on the second ballot.
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“Scotched” was the wrong word, implying not held, I apologize. Interpreting the vote got destroyed, was what I meant.
It’s clear that the folks who run PR see their jobs in danger if the island becomes a state. Hurricanes have now made it clear what second-class status means to the average person.
No, it voted for becoming a state, under the terms set for the 2-question referendum.
Question 1: Should Puerto Rico continue its current territorial status?
Yes: 46%
No: 54% (Wins)
Question 2: Which non-territorial option do you prefer?
61.2% for statehood (Wins)
33.3% for free association
5.5% for independence
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Puerto_Rican_status_ref...
> and in 2017 a vote on the issue was scotched because of anti-statehood boycotters.
No, the vote was held, statehood won overwhelmingly, but the boycott by opponents was cited (by opponents!) as a reason to disregard the results.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Puerto_Rican_status_ref...