Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections despite being U.S. citizens, but they can exert a powerful influence with relatives on the mainland. Phones across the island of 3.2 million people were ringing minutes after the speaker derided the U.S. territory Sunday night, and they still buzzed Monday.
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is competing with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Shortly after stand-up comic Tony Hinchcliffe said that, “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny announced he was backing Harris.
After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”
Why the fuck are US citizens not allowed to vote in a US election?
Because each state is given the power to elect a president, not the voters. Puerto Rico isn’t a state so their voters aren’t represented properly.
i mean the technicallity is that washington dc isnt a state either, so the better answer is that you need to live in a region where you have representatives.
Dc does not have voting representatives in congress. They only get electoral votes because of the 23rd ammendment
The better question is “why didn’t the 23rd grant voting rights to all US citizens in all territories?”
gonna be honest with you, its racism.
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but the context of the news report is about the president, which they can vote for.
Also because DC and PR would most likely vote democrats it makes it harder. Most of the time when a state joined the union there was a fight.
What a shit system
the electoral college values different things than the will of the populace
Which was actually supposed to prevent Trump, but the founding fathers couldn’t have predicted the modern world.
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What happened to that law?
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History tells me that if the US is disenfranchising a group of people, it’s usually racism
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0065
The problem with the south, is that everything they do looks like it’s all about racism, but they actually use their virulent and brutal racism to cover more evil selfishness. They’re just monstrously racist as a hobby, corruption is their true passion.
one more reason why the popular vote would be better than the shitshow this is
Puerto Rico is a protectorate and has its own government. Puerto Ricans can’t vote while on the island, but can vote in the US
Every US State has its own government, too. I don’t see that as an excuse.
The Constitution says that each state shall send electors to the electoral college. So Puerto Rico’s status as an unorganized territory is a bit of a blocker.
The District of Columbia is also not a part of any state, as specified in the Constitution. However, DC explicitly got some electors in the 23rd amendment, so they can vote for President.
Really, the idea that the United States might have overseas territories that are not on track to statehood is itself an invention of the twentieth century. (Owing to the 1898 Spanish-American war, which caused the US to take over several parts of the ex-Spanish empire).
Yes, I understand that that’s the reason, but a reason is not the same thing as an excuse.
No, that can’t be right, because half the comments here say it’s due to racism. So if a Puerto Rican moves to a US state, they still can’t vote, right?
Both those things are true, racists prevent it from becoming a state to prevent it from voting dem.
They can’t do this directly anymore, so they are just disenfranchised on Puerto Rico.
They can and do