New York – Before the voting stations opened this Sunday for the primary elections in Puerto Rico, Edwin Mundo, the campaign director of the incumbent Pedro Pierluisi, was already denouncing that, in some of these spaces, officials representing the Also running for governor, Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González, wore t-shirts alluding to the campaign.
“They did not follow the rules of the game that had been determined that could not be used as a badge for the officials’ shirts and they failed to comply with that rule. The electoral commissioner, Santo Domingo, this morning had to issue a resolution again preventing them from wearing these shirts. “Our officials have clear instructions that no one can wear a distinctive shirt,” Mundo complained in a radio interview on WKAQ.
Pierluisi’s campaign director explained that, after the complaint, the electoral commissioner of the PNP, Vanessa Santo Domingo, prohibited, by resolution, at around 7 am, that sympathizers of both sides of the PNP wear t-shirts alluding to the campaigns of the applicants.
The controversy reached the point where the former PNP senator, Margarita Nolasco, barricaded herself in the Permanent Registration Board (JIP) of Coamo as a form of resistance so as not to take off her clothing. Mundo added that the Police had to intervene.
“We ask you to follow the rules to avoid problems in schools and face difficulties. This morning, we had to send the Police to remove former Senator Margarita Nolasco, who is in Coamo and basically barricaded herself in the Permanent Registration Board and did not want to take off her shirt. She has had to be given instructions by the Police that she has to leave there to change her shirt. We need them to be there so that the process is clear and transparent, but we all have to comply,” stated the governor’s spokesperson.
Similar incidents have been reported in other towns on the island, according to Mundo.
Complaints about lack of school officials and useless counting machines
The issue of the shirts has not been the only one that has clouded the course of the processes until noon today.
In the case of the PPD primaries, a voter reported that party officials did not arrive at the voting center at the Agustin Stahl school in Bayamón.
“The popular ones are not there. They have not said anything about whether they have changed schools or anything,” questioned Carlos Raúl Meléndez Ortiz, as quoted by El Nuevo Día.
Meléndez Ortiz, who anticipated that the elections will be worse in view of what is happening in the primary process, said that he went through the school on five occasions in search of PPD officials without success.
Another complaint reported by the newspaper indicates that at the National Talent Academy, located in that same municipality, staff complained to international observers that it was taking 15 minutes to complete the process per voter, that the turns for the participants were not clear and that two vote transmission machines were not working.
On the other hand, it emerged that the power went out at the voting center of the Trina Padilla de Sanz school in San Juan. Preliminary reports suggest that lightning may have affected service in the area. The El Nuevo Día report states that, although the school has a generator, it does not have diesel.
The rains recorded in some areas of the country have also affected the primary day. For example, at the José Santos Alegría school, a flood in a hallway made it difficult for voters to get through.
Added to the above was the slowness in the electronic counting process and problems with the machines that read the electoral cards.
More on El Diario’s special coverage of the primaries in Puerto Rico this Sunday:
PNP and PPD primaries in Puerto Rico this Sunday: voters could receive up to 7 ballots
Primary elections in Puerto Rico: PNP and PPD candidacies for governor will be decided this Sunday
El Nuevo Día Poll: Jenniffer González and Pedro Pierluisi virtually tied for the PNP gubernatorial candidacy
El Nuevo Día Poll: Jesús Manuel Ortiz would beat Juan Zaragoza as a candidate for governor for the PPD in Puerto Rico