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And they have had opportunities to begin the process to fully opt in and haven't done so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_status_referendum,_2017#Pr

And they have had opportunities to begin the process to fully opt in and haven't done so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_status_referendum,_2017#Previous_referendums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_status_referendum... We should help because they are people hurting but lets not mischaracterize the dynamics of PR/USA relations.

spraak 9y ago
What? Your link shows they voted for statehood, so I don't understand your point.
eridius 9y ago
According to your link, in the 2012 referendum, the majority (61.11%) of votes were for statehood, but congress decided to ignore the referendum because of the large number of blank ballots (500k).
- positr0n 9y ago
  Both referendums were widely boycotted for various reasons by no voters. The only people who voted were the small minority who wanted to become a state. edit: Thanks for the corrections. The boycott was only a factor for the June 2017 referendum https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/puerto-ricans-vote-on-the-question-of-statehood.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/puerto-ricans-vote-on-...
  - eridius 9y ago
    It looks like approximately 1.8 million people voted on the first question, and 1.36 million people voted on the second. And in 2016 Puerto Rico was estimated as having a population of 3.4 million. In light of that, 1.8 million votes on the first and 1.36 million votes on the second seems fairly similar to the normal voter turnout in the U.S. So no, it doesn't sound to me like a "small minority" of people were voting. EDIT: This is talking about the 2012 referendum. EDIT 2: It occurs to me that 3.4 million isn't the voting population, it's the total population. So the voter turnout is even better than it looks initially.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    The 2012 election had 78% turnout with valid ballots in the question of whether or not to continue the current status, on which a majority voted to reject the current status, and 56% turnout on the question of alternative status, on which a majority chose Statehood. On either question, the turnout was better than several US Presidential elections (and on the first better than any recent Presidential election.) There were significant boycotts of the 2017 referendum because of the wording of the title, but in any other US election, we don't ignore election results because people choose to abstain.
  - vkou 9y ago
    A small minority of Americans voted for Trump. Should we have ignored the results of the election because only a small minority of sour grapes shouldn't make that important a decision for the rest of us?
dragonwriter 9y ago
The article you links to reports that Statehood won the 2012 referendum (majority voted no to current status, and Statehood got a majority of votes for the alternative status), which Congress chose to ignore, and overwhelmingly won the single-stage 2017 referendum. So, no, the issue is not “they have had opportunities to begin the process to fully opt in and haven't done so”.
- umanwizard 9y ago
  The 2017 """referendum""" was a push poll, not a binding referendum or even a fair and objective opinion poll.
  - plandis 9y ago
    What do you mean it wasn't fair or objective?
    - jldugger 9y ago
      Opinion polling put Statehood at 52%, with a 3.2% margin of error. Sounds close, but the referendum had 3 choices, and neither were very close. It seems like those opposed to Statehood realized they'd lose as they split the vote, and ran a boycott campaign, effectively turning it into a yes/no vote on statehood, with the fringe benefit of claiming all non-voters as on their side, which going by 2012, is a free 20 percent of the vote. For better or worse, there's not really an objective way to evaluate this state of affairs =/
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        We could do what we do with every other election, and treat nonvotes as irrelevant to the validity of the outcome unless they result from people being improperly prevented from voting rather than voluntarily abstaining, whether in protest or otherwise.
        jldugger 9y ago

spraak 9y ago

What? Your link shows they voted for statehood, so I don't understand your point.

eridius 9y ago

According to your link, in the 2012 referendum, the majority (61.11%) of votes were for statehood, but congress decided to ignore the referendum because of the large number of blank ballots (500k).

positr0n 9y ago
Both referendums were widely boycotted for various reasons by no voters. The only people who voted were the small minority who wanted to become a state. edit: Thanks for the corrections. The boycott was only a factor for the June 2017 referendum https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/puerto-ricans-vote-on-the-question-of-statehood.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/us/puerto-ricans-vote-on-...
- eridius 9y ago
  It looks like approximately 1.8 million people voted on the first question, and 1.36 million people voted on the second. And in 2016 Puerto Rico was estimated as having a population of 3.4 million. In light of that, 1.8 million votes on the first and 1.36 million votes on the second seems fairly similar to the normal voter turnout in the U.S. So no, it doesn't sound to me like a "small minority" of people were voting. EDIT: This is talking about the 2012 referendum. EDIT 2: It occurs to me that 3.4 million isn't the voting population, it's the total population. So the voter turnout is even better than it looks initially.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  The 2012 election had 78% turnout with valid ballots in the question of whether or not to continue the current status, on which a majority voted to reject the current status, and 56% turnout on the question of alternative status, on which a majority chose Statehood. On either question, the turnout was better than several US Presidential elections (and on the first better than any recent Presidential election.) There were significant boycotts of the 2017 referendum because of the wording of the title, but in any other US election, we don't ignore election results because people choose to abstain.
- vkou 9y ago
  A small minority of Americans voted for Trump. Should we have ignored the results of the election because only a small minority of sour grapes shouldn't make that important a decision for the rest of us?

dragonwriter 9y ago

The article you links to reports that Statehood won the 2012 referendum (majority voted no to current status, and Statehood got a majority of votes for the alternative status), which Congress chose to ignore, and overwhelmingly won the single-stage 2017 referendum. So, no, the issue is not “they have had opportunities to begin the process to fully opt in and haven't done so”.

umanwizard 9y ago
The 2017 """referendum""" was a push poll, not a binding referendum or even a fair and objective opinion poll.
- plandis 9y ago
  What do you mean it wasn't fair or objective?
  - jldugger 9y ago
    Opinion polling put Statehood at 52%, with a 3.2% margin of error. Sounds close, but the referendum had 3 choices, and neither were very close. It seems like those opposed to Statehood realized they'd lose as they split the vote, and ran a boycott campaign, effectively turning it into a yes/no vote on statehood, with the fringe benefit of claiming all non-voters as on their side, which going by 2012, is a free 20 percent of the vote. For better or worse, there's not really an objective way to evaluate this state of affairs =/
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      We could do what we do with every other election, and treat nonvotes as irrelevant to the validity of the outcome unless they result from people being improperly prevented from voting rather than voluntarily abstaining, whether in protest or otherwise.
      - jldugger 9y ago