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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Puerto Rico: 1998 Status Plebiscite Vote Summary
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Race
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ May 22, 2008 03:52am |
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| Category | Election Guide |
| News Date | Thursday, December 31, 1998 09:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Article by Manuel José, neutral observer for the Commonwealth Elections Commission of Puerto Rico.
"Puerto Rico rejected all four status petitions presented on the ballot in a plebiscite held on December 13, 1998. The fifth column on the ballot, "none of the above" obtained an absolute majority of the votes cast in the electoral event, which were distributed as follows: Petition 1, "Territorial" Commonwealth, 993 (0.1%); Petition 2, Free Association, 4,536 (0.3%); Petition 3, Statehood, 728,157 (46.5%); Petition 4, Independence, 39,838 (2.5%); None of the above, 787,900 (50.3%); and blank and void ballots, 4,846 (0.3%). "None of the above" won a majority of 59,743 votes over statehood. 1,566,270 of the 2,197,824 registered voters cast ballots, for a turnout rate of 71.3%.
Save for a handful of voters who supported the free association petition, the bulk of the leadership of the opposition Popular Democratic Party (PPD), which backs continued commonwealth status - an arrangement established in 1952 by the party's founding leader and then-Governor of Puerto Rico, Don Luis Muñoz-Marín, under which the island is associated to the United States as a self-governing polity - campaigned in favor of "none of the above" to protest the "territorial" definition of the commonwealth option imposed on the ballot by the ruling New Progressive Party (PNP), which supports statehood for Puerto Rico."
"It is evident from the plebiscite results that the PPD campaign for "none of the above" was quite effective, given that the commonwealth petition, rejected as "territorial" by the party, obtained an insignificant number of votes. It has been speculated that most of these were cast by elderly, lifetime PPD followers who apparently could not understand that the commonwealth option presented on the ballot had very little in common with commonwealth as defined by the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico." |
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