A Glossary of Voting Rights

One of the most important issues about Puerto Rico’s status has to do with voting rights. Residents of Puerto Rico cannot vote in presidential elections. Neither can they vote for Members of Congress or Senators — because the Island has none. Voting is the most basic right, the foundation of democracy. Without the power to vote, Puerto Rico has very limited participation in U.S. democracy.  When you read about voting rights, it’s useful to understand the terms in this glossary of voting rights.

• Absentee voting is the practice of voting by mail instead of in person.
• Disenfranchisement means having no right to vote. The right to vote is known as the “franchise,” and people who do not have that right are disenfranchised. U.S. citizens living in Puerto Rico — no matter where they were born — do not have a vote in presidential elections, so they are disenfranchised.
• Disinformation is false information spread intentionally. It is different from misinformation, which is false information spread by mistake.
• Election denial is the practice of using disinformation to discredit elections.  An example is the practice of claiming that a majority result in an election was not a majority because of blank votes or falsely claiming voter fraud.
• Suffrage, like franchise, means the right to vote. We often see this word in the phrase “women suffrage,” since women didn’t get the vote until the 20th century in the United States.
• Voter eligibility describes the factors required for people to be able to vote. For example, voters in the United States must be U.S. citizens and 18 years or over in age. Early in the 20th century, women in Puerto Rico faced a literacy test before they could vote. This unreasonable requirement for voter eligibility kept Puerto Rican women from full suffrage for more than a decade after women in the states got the vote.
• Voter suppression is the process of keeping people who might vote against you from voting at all. One example of this is the open statements from some Republicans in Congress saying that they will not support statehood for Puerto Rico because they fear that Puerto Rico would vote for Democrats. They’re probably wrong about that, but trying to prevent voting by supporters  of the other party is voter suppression. Another example is using disinformation to cause people to believe that elections are corrupt or useless.

Why are Puerto Rico voters disenfranchised?

People born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens. If they move to a state, they can immediately register to vote and take part in elections for president, senate, and congressional representatives.

As a territory, Puerto Rico does not have senators or voting congressional representatives. Puerto Rico also does not have electors, which means that the territory of Puerto Rico has no vote in presidential elections.