Recount resumes in Puerto Rico

The recount in Puerto Rico's still-unsettled governor's race resumed Monday as about 20,000 protestors decried the U.S. District Court's intervention in the ongoing controversy. The recount stalled for six days after about 150 election workers walked off the job Nov. 23 over how disputed ballots were being handled_got under way only after officials brokered a deal to count those ballots but hold the tally aside. Some 2 million Puerto Ricans cast ballots in the Nov. 2 election between Anibal Acevedo Vila of the Popular Democratic Party and Pedro Rossello of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party. When counting was suspended on election night, Acevedo Vila held a 3,880-vote lead, with some 28,000 disputed ballots remaining uncounted. In the four weeks since, the island has been in political turmoil over what to do with the ballots, with the commonwealth's supreme court ordering them counted, and the U.S. District Court overriding that decision and requiring that the disputed ballots be set aside until the court can review them. [more]

• Pictured above: Women march holding Puerto Rican flags and signs that read: 'Stop the federal coup, Puerto Rico should be respected', during a protest against a U.S. federal court decision in the extremely close gubernatorial election on Monday, Nov. 29, 2004 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The protest stemmed from a U.S. District Court decision last week ordering elections officials not to validate thousands of disputed ballots that favor Anibal Acevedo Vila, the Popular Democratic Party's gubernatorial candidate. [more]