A month later, Puerto Rico election still undecided
/The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico still does not know who its
next governor will be more than a month after the general election. In
a mirror image of the Florida court battles and recounts that for five
weeks held up results of the U.S. presidential election in 2000, the
Nov. 2 election in Puerto Rico is mired in lawsuits and vote
recounting. Popular Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Anibal Acevedo
Vila, whose party favors the status quo of free association with the
United States, had a 3,880-vote lead when partial election results were
certified Nov. 3. But the New Progressive Party (NPP) and its
candidate, former two-term Gov. Pedro Rossello, who favors statehood
for the Caribbean territory's 4 million people, cried foul and said
7,000 ballots had not been properly counted. The contested votes are
so-called double-split ballots that have both a voter's mark under a
party insignia and marks for governor and resident commissioner from a
different party. The resident commissioner is Puerto Rico's nonvoting
representative in the U.S. Congress, a position held by Vila for the
last four years. Both parties have since also reported irregularities
at voting places, including one in the northern town of Guaynabo where
more ballots were cast than the number of registered voters. [more]
- Lawyers want mixed-vote case returned to Supreme Court [more]
