As Election Day draws near, Puerto Rico is also gearing up for a plebiscite vote to be held on the same day that the people of Puerto Rico will cast votes for their new Governor and Resident Commissioner. Lawful residents of Puerto Rico will not only cast votes for their political leaders, but they will also have the opportunity to vote on how they seek to enhance democracy in Puerto Rico itself. The political referendum will enable voters to choose between statehood and independence (with a second independence option that makes it clear that voters would prefer to have a Free Association arrangement with the U.S., as three Pacific Island nations do).
Should all residents of Puerto Rico get to vote?
For the 2024 referendum, the only people who can vote will be people who are registered to vote in Puerto Rico. Eligibility is simple, according to the U.S. Vote Foundation.
You are eligible to vote in Puerto Rico if you:
- Are a U.S. citizen
- Are a resident of Puerto Rico
- Are at least 18 years old by Election Day
This is the same as the eligibility requirements in the states. Only someone who actually lives in a state is allowed to vote. If your legal residence is in Puerto Rico but you will be out of town on Election Day, you can vote with an absentee ballot. People doing this may include — among many others — Puerto Ricans studying in the states, people traveling, or Act 60 residents who only spend half the year on the Island.
Not everyone agrees that this is right.
“In recent years, millionaire and billionaire Americans have been settling in Puerto Rico to exploit a tax loophole that allows them to avoid paying capital gains taxes. Will these recent residents be allowed to participate in a status referendum while our relatives, who were displaced by an economic spiral and Hurricane Maria, are denied that say?” wrote former city council member Maria Quiñones Sánchez in The Philadelphia Inquirer. “The PRSA doesn’t say but does not ban this colonial wave from being decision-makers in the future of Puerto Rico.”
It is fair to ask whether recent arrivals who benefit from the tax loopholes allowed by Puerto Rico’s territorial status have the same interests as those who have spent their lives in Puerto Rico. Yet denying these would-be voters access to the polls would be an uphill battle. No state requires voters to prove that they aren’t carpetbaggers before they vote. Nor do any states require voters to prove that they have good intentions. Indeed, the point of democratic voting is to allow everyone affected by decisions to have a say in those decisions, whether they agree with one another or not.
Should non-residents of Puerto Rico get to vote?
Many people believe that stateside Puerto Ricans should also get to vote. Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) is an example of a Member of Congress who wants to see the mainland Puerto Ricans included in the vote. Velazquez was born in Puerto Rico and has statutory U.S. citizenship. If Puerto Rico voted for independence and people born in Puerto Rico lost their U.S. citizenship, Velazquez could be affected very deeply as statutory U.S. citizenship based on birth in what will be a foreign country is reevaluated.
Thousands of people who were born in Puerto Rico are now living in the states. They could be affected in important ways by a change of status for Puerto Rico, but they may not be able to take part in the vote deciding the future political status of the Island.
What Happens to U.S. Citizenship If Puerto Rico Becomes a Foreign Country? Possible Scenarios
Residents of one state simply don’t get to make choices for other states. We can imagine someone born in Hawaii moving to Ohio for a job and yet continuing to love and think about Hawaii. If an important election comes up in Hawaii, should a native Hawaiian get to vote? Maybe, but they can’t.
People have never been given the opportunity to vote in a state where they are not legal residents. If Puerto Rico’s status vote included the votes of people from every state, people actually living on the Island could be outnumbered by voters who don’t live there. It could happen that people safely ensconced in a state could choose independence for Puerto Rico even though they would be able to remain comfortably in their stateside homes and escape many of the consequences of their choices, such as access to voting Members of Congress and federal benefits.
There would also be many practical questions to be sorted out. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed out in an interview with Latino Rebels that there would have to be decisions about whether only people born in Puerto Rico and living in states would be included, or would their children and grandchildren also be included? They would have to figure out how and where such voting could take place.
She also pointed out the flip side of the question: if Puerto Ricans who don’t live in Puerto Rico get to vote, what about people who do live in Puerto Rico but are not (by some definition) Puerto Ricans? Eligibility to vote based on ethnic heritage is definitely not protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Points on all sides
For both of these questions, reasonable arguments could be made on all sides. The default option is to allow all registered voters on the Island to vote, and that is the plan for 2024.
