Over the past 75 years, the number of election boycotts in developing countries increased. Related academic discussions of the phenomenon followed, with opposing sides arguing over whether the boycotts were intended to focus international attention on the alleged unfairness of the elections or merely to save face for weak political parties. Ultimately, most theorists concluded that the boycotts were simply an ineffective political tool.
“Boycott elections!” was a Marxist slogan (paired in 1968 with the much less catchy “Establish rural bases and create areas of armed struggle!” by Charu Mazumdar).
A 1971 document on behalf of the Marxist-Leninist Party explained the concept in a single (very long) sentence: “The main focus of our struggle against the elections in that, within the oppressor (American) nation, within the Yankee imperialist heartlands of U.S. imperialism, the elections are a device to substitute an illusory class peace, an unreal atmosphere of peaceful debates, conciliations, compromises, and ‘coalitions’ in place of the rapidly deepening and broadening CLASS WAR, the war between the oppressed and the oppressor, that has reached one of its peaks in the heroic Attica Uprising, bloodily crushed by the bourgeois state machine after four historic days of highly organized seizure, self-defense, and especially, as witnessed by millions through the TV, etc., the Revolutionary Authority of the self-organized, self-educated prisoners, definitely the advanced detachment of the oppressed class as a whole.”
The Marxist-Leninist Party goes on at some length before concluding with, “The M.L.P. calls upon all revolutionary forces to utilize the occasion of the bourgeois elections to further and further unite the subjective and objective factors in the revolutionary onslaught against the decadent, parasitical, and imperialist bourgeoisie and all their running dogs!” This is the theoretical background of the movement to boycott elections.
In the United States, boycotting a vote has never been politically meaningful. We do not have a quorum or minimum turnout for voting. As Clay Shirky pointed out in response to recent calls for protest votes in the U.S., “[t]he system is set up so that every choice other than ‘R’ or ‘D’ boils down to ‘I defer to the judgement of my fellow citizens.’” So at least in the fifty states, nobody boycotts a vote they can win.
The Puerto Rico Election Boycott of 2017
Much has been written about the boycott of the 2017 plebiscite by the Puerto Rico Popular Democratic Party (PPD), a major local political party in Puerto Rico that is unrelated to the U.S. Democratic Party.
The plebiscite was first envisioned in a Puerto Rico law known as the “Immediate Decolonization Law of 2017,” which enjoyed support from proponents of both Puerto Rico sovereignty and Puerto Rico statehood. The PPD, however, opposed the proposed plebiscite because Puerto Rico’s current territorial status, which is often called “Estado Libre Asociado” or “Commonwealth,” was not included.
The law’s proponents pointed out that including the current territorial status would run contrary to the whole point of having a “decolonization” plebiscite. After all, if the current status were to win, no decolonization would take place.
On top of that, the current territorial status had already been defeated by the people of Puerto Rico in a 2012 plebiscite. For the pro-sovereignty and pro-statehood alliance, including the current status was never contemplated as part of an initiative to bring about reform.
The PPD remained adamant about having a “Commonwealth” option included.
The term “Commonwealth” is tricky in Puerto Rico. “Commonwealth” is a term that is used informally to refer to the territory of Puerto Rico, just as the State of Virginia is often called the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In Puerto Rico, however, the term “Commonwealth” has also been used to refer to an aspirational Puerto Rico in which Puerto Rico becomes a sovereign country while retaining the benefits of its current U.S. association, especially U.S. citizenship. Despite decades of debate, this new type of “commonwealth” – a sovereignty/statehood mix – has never been validated by U.S. authorities and has repeatedly been dismissed as an impossible fantasy.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) got involved to review the language of the proposed 2017 plebiscite. Based on 2014 federal legislation that allocated $2.5 million for a local vote to “resolve Puerto Rico’s future political status”, the DOJ had the authority to review the ballot and determine whether it fulfilled the requirements necessary to deserve funding. The DOJ did so and concluded that the ballot must be amended to “include the current territorial status as an option.”
The U.S. Justice Department did not, however, mandate the inclusion of the mixed sovereignty/statehood concept of “Commonwealth,” which it noted has been “rejected as unconstitutional.”
Following this determination, Puerto Rico’s pro-statehood Governor, Ricardo Rosselló, was faced with a tough decision—keep the plebiscite as-is, and lose the chance to get the $2.5 million in funding, or include the current status, comply with the DOJ, and make the plebiscite more legitimate by following the federal order. He chose the latter.
The Governor included what the DOJ had demanded: the inclusion of the “current territorial status” as an option in the plebiscite.
The PPD then doubled down on its call to supporters to boycott the vote, explaining that the “current territorial status” did not represent what they believe in, which is the “Estado Libre Asociado” or “Commonwealth.”
Pro-sovereignty supporters also decided to boycott the new ballot since the current territorial status of Puerto Rico was included.
Ultimately, almost all of the voters (97%) who participated in the 2017 referendum chose statehood, but low turnout — never relevant in U.S. elections — once again muddied the waters. Ballots had clearly stated that blank votes would not be counted, but “commonwealth” supporters maintained that all those who had not voted were committed to enhanced commonwealth.
2024 Developments
In 2024, there was again a movement to boycott the vote. Both “commonwealth” and pro-independence parties called on their members to boycott the referendum.
Despite the “commonwealth” party (Popular Democratic Party or PPD) call to leave the plebiscite ballot blank, former PPD governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá stated he would vote in favor of sovereignty in free association. “This is the option making the most headway in Congress, and it is being treated differently from independence,” Acevedo Vilá stated on his program Sobre la Mesa on Radio Isla, despite some evidence to the contrary that the Freely Associated States are considered independent nations by Congress, each with their own national citizenships.
Congressional Hearing Again Confirms: Freely Associated States Are Independent, Sovereign Nations
According the El Nuevo Dia, the former governor and past PPD president believed the plebiscite would weaken the statehood movement and remarked that “there has been no compelling argument or campaign to promote leaving ballots blank.”
Acevedo Vilá added that, despite lacking an official party advocate, free association had gained up to 25% of voter support in polls.
Turnout was high in 2024, and only 16% of ballots left the status question empty. Ultimately, the free association option garnered only 12% of the vote. Independence won 31% of the vote. Statehood was the winning choice with 57 percent.
Seven years after the 2017 election boycott, has the “commonwealth” position run out of steam? Maybe. Although “commonwealth” proponent Pablo José Hernández Rivera was just elected to the position of Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico in the 2024 vote, he wrote in a recent op-ed in The Hill, that “Puerto Ricans are simply tired of the sterile status debate,” and has pledged to stop “wasting time dealing with Puerto Rico’s political status.” In other words, the Commonwealth leader does not plan to promote “commonwealth” among his new congressional colleagues, but he hasn’t called for a boycott of the democratic process either. “Commonwealth” appears to be losing steam, but without the drama of a boycott.
Updated on December 4, 2024
