Puerto Rico’s Primary Election On Sunday Was Historic — In A Bad Way

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An electoral official, right, tells a voter that the ballots haven’t arrived at a voting center in Carolina, Puerto Rico, on Sunday.

Danica Coto/AP

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Danica Coto/AP

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It’s not clear why ballots were not delivered on time. Political party officials laid blame with the island’s election commission. The head of the election commission pointed the finger at a printing facility, according to the Miami Herald.

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board issued a statement on Sunday evening saying it had fully funded the elections commission and a lack of money could not be to blame.

«The State Elections Commission has sufficient money, and it has the more than enough staff to perform the one task it is charged with, the oversight board said in its statement, calling the ballot debacle «unacceptable and the result of «inefficient organization.

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It’s the latest example of chaos at U.S. polling places during summer primaries, as the pandemic has created new headaches for election officials. Concerns about the virus have caused some election workers to stay home, while those who remain face rescheduled elections, new ad hoc social-distancing policies, and, in some cases, the project of massively scaling up their mail-in voting system. (In Puerto Rico, as in a handful of states, absentee voting is still only offered to those with an excuse for why they cannot vote in person, which is why voters there had little choice but to go to the polls in person.)

Meanwhile, as election officials grapple with the challenges of avoiding disease transmission on voting day and maintaining election security, President Trump has raised inaccurate and unsupported objections to mail-in voting and floated the prospect of delaying the U.S. presidential election, which he does not have the authority to do.