Puerto Rican status referendum, 2012

Location

Date

November 6, 2012; 4 years ago

Voting system

simple majority for the first question
first-past-the-post for the second question

Should Puerto Rico continue its current territorial status?


Yes			46.00%
No			54.00%

Which non-territorial option do you prefer?


Statehood			61.16%
Free Association			33.34%
Independence			5.49%
There were 515,348 blank and invalidated ballots counted alongside the 1,363,854 ballots. Under Puerto Rico Law, these ballots are not considered cast votes and are therefore not reflected in the final tally.

A referendum on the political status of Puerto Rico was held in Puerto Rico on November 6, 2012. It was the fourth referendum on status to be held in Puerto Rico and the first in which a majority voted for statehood. Puerto Rico has been an unincorporated territory of the United States since the Spanish–American War in 1898.

Puerto Rican voters were asked two questions: (1) whether they agreed to continue with Puerto Rico's territorial status and (2) to indicate the political status they preferred from three possibilities: statehood, independence, or a sovereign nation in free association with the United States. 970,910 (54.00%) voted "No" on the first question, expressing themselves against maintaining the current political status, and 828,077 (46.00%) voted "Yes", to maintain the current political status. Of those who answered on the second question 834,191 (61.11%) chose statehood, 454,768 (33.34%) chose free association, and 74,895 (5.55%) chose independence.

The governor-elect Alejandro García Padilla of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) and several other leaders who favor the present status had recommended voting "Yes" to the first question, and leaving the second question blank as a protest to what they said was "an anti-democratic process" and "a trap".

Puerto Rico's nonvoting Resident Commissioner, Pedro Pierluisi, has said that he will "defend the people's decision" in Washington, D.C. He plans to introduce legislation in Congress to admit Puerto Rico to the Union. Although García Padilla questioned the validity of the results, he stated that he planned to go forward with what President Barack Obama had suggested, and convene a constituent assembly to resolve the status issue. Such an assembly was not ultimately held under García Padilla's governorship.

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Wikipedia