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According to Fox News:
Puerto Rico's governor announced that the U.S. territory has overwhelmingly chosen statehood in a nonbinding referendum Sunday held amid a deep economic crisis that has sparked an exodus of islanders to the U.S. mainland.
Nearly half a million votes were cast for statehood, more than 7,600 for free association/independence and nearly 6,700 for independence, according to preliminary results. The participation rate was just 23 percent with roughly 2.26 million registered voters, leading opponents to question the validity of a vote that several parties had boycotted.
Also covered by AP.
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Puerto Ricans Back Becoming 51st State
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
F.S. Fitzgerald to Hemingway:
"Ernest, the rich are different from us."
Hemingway:
"Yes. They have more money."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:47PM (2 children)
The summary is misleading. Sure, only 23 percent of people voted, but how does that make it illegitimate? It's not great numbers, but it's enough to be statistically significant. You didn't vote? Fine, your vote won't count. Don't like it? Then you should have voted.
Now lets look at the numbers of those who did vote. Half a million voted statehood, yet barely more than that even voted at all. Based on the numbers I see it looks like 96% voted statehood. Can you really shrug that off?
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday June 12 2017, @02:58PM (1 child)
Just for some perspective (I'm not arguing one way or another on how this vote should be read in PR):
-- Brexit is occurring because 37.4% of voters were in favor of it. (71% turnout from electorate, 51.89% voting in favor)
-- Donald Trump was elected as President with 27.7% of eligible US voters. (60.2% turnout from voting eligible population, 46% voting for Trump)
-- Puerto Ricans have voted for statehood with 22.3% of eligible voters. (23% turnout, with 97% voting for statehood)
-- In the previous 2012 referendum on statehood, Puerto Ricans voted for statehood with 34.7% of registered voters (78% turnout, 61.16% voting of those who cast a vote for choice chose statehood; the ballot [wikipedia.org] had two questions and was confusing, leading to half a million blank ballots on the question, so results were ignored by Congress)
So, based on the 2012 referendum, the Puerto Rican people have already more strongly supported statehood than the U.S. population supported Trump in 2016, and nearly as much as the UK population supported Brexit, if you're looking at percentage of electorate.
This 2017 referendum had a significantly lower turnout, but a much more decisive vote breakdown. Note that interpretation is complicated because of a long history of vague ballots in Puerto Rico. Statehood initiatives in 1967 and 1993 explicitly had a "commonwealth" option (Puerto Rico's current status). The 1998 referendum had no "Commonwealth choice" and those who did vote for a choice voted strongly in favor of statehood. But there was a "none of the above" choice, which was interpreted as meaning "remain as commonwealth," and that garnered slightly more votes than statehood. The 2012 referendum was complicated, because it seemed to try to make an end run around the "commonwealth" question by first asking if voters wanted to remain in "current status," which majority said "No, NOT remain in current status" to. But the second question asked what status was preferred, and as noted above, a large number of ballots were simply left blank, leading many to assume these were "commonwealth" supporters.
The current referendum is less open to interpretation, because it did explicitly allow a "current status" option, which only 1.3% of voters chose. On the other hand, various wordings of the ballot apparently made assertions about the sovereignty of Puerto Rico that various political parties don't accept (e.g., the "current status" option had an explanation that recognized the plenary powers of Congress over PR, which is currently true under the U.S. Constitution, but Puerto Ricans view the wording of the ballot to imply they're basically a "colony"), so they viewed participation as a tacit acknowledgement of those assertions.
It's all a mess.
(Score: 2) by ese002 on Monday June 12 2017, @10:35PM
This is the other problem. The referendum is non-binding thus many will not take it seriously, leading to the poor turnout.
IMHO, what should be done is that Congress should approve Puerto Rican statehood under the condition that another referendum passes.
This referendum would be binding and irrevocable. Congress has already approved so if it passes, the deal is done. Congress could even include a extra conditions like a 2/3 majority and minimum participation rate of eligible voters. This should put an end to any ambiguities.
Of course the odds of anything so clear and reasonable coming out of this Congress are about nil.
Tangentially, I think choosing statehood just so PR can declare bankruptcy is a bit ridiculous even if congressional meddling is partly responsible for the situation.