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.
What happened to “no taxation without representation”…?
Never existed in the US. Women, slaves, prisoners, permanent residents, etc… It’s always been in the hands of the rich. They just pretend to listen to the people. But as Trump has many times noted, the vote doesn’t matter. The state can send delegates with any instructions they want and the federal government can decide state delegates are not valid and exclude them. Most states have laws to follow the vote, but it’s not the federal government’s job to enforce those laws if they chose not to follow them. That would be for the people of that state to fight later.
Ask some of the 14-17 year olds working their first jobs paying tax without the ability to vote. That was never a real concern for anyone outside landowning whites.
Lots of people move to Puerto Rico for tax purposes.
Easy, they don’t pay federal taxes
While they dont pay income taxes to the IRS, they do pay customs taxes, federal commodity taxes, and federal payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment) to the IRS, which sounds alot like federal taxes to me.
It also feels like it’s something different because they aren’t supposed to go into the general fund, but advance payment for specific benefits
Do they receive those benefits?
Yes.
Taxes are just when the goverment demands money. It doesn’t require they spend (or not spend) on anything in particular.
That’s not true. There are technically different classifications. For example, fees are specifically not taxes.
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
There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
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.
Puerto Rico needs to be a state already. Washington DC too.
Combine the Carolinas and Dakotas, add DC and Puerto Rico. No flag change.
I was gonna say it’s ridiculous to make DC a state, it’s just a city!
Turns out more people live in DC than Wyoming or Vermont LOL. So I’m down!
Also I’ve heard that monkey’s brains, although popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often found there.
Turns out communism was just a red herring!
A few people were clued into that reference, I see…
IIRC if DC became a state, only specific federal buildings, such as the white house, scotus & the capitol buildings would remain as a territory (due to the constitution), but, because of a amendment to the us constitution giving DC the same amount of voters _(members of the electoral college)_for the president as the lowest-representation (essentially always 3), which only citizens living inside the area would be allowed to vote for, only the citizens of white house would be able to vote for 3 whole electors.
I might be incirrect, as I am not a US citizen, but I’ve seen this mentioned somewhere long ago
If DC were converted to a state, presumably this would be changed so there would be no district. The federal buildings would just be buildings in that state.
Look man. I know NC is far from perfect, but don’t lump me in with SC okay.
As a GA resident right across the river from SC, I understand that sentiment. SC sucks. Those bastards stole our city name and our fuckin baseball team.
But think about all the food down there in SC, y’all can claim it. Maybe they’ll take some of the empathy and intersectional community minded mutual aid networks y’all got and we can all be a little fatter and happier.
Plus, we all get more papusas and salpicon!
Add DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and we have 53 states. 53 is a prime number, and therefore we would be indivisible.
Why does DC need to be separate anyway? Does any other country do it like that?
Edit: yes, a few, but not really any I would look to as role models: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_district
But first you should probably fix those islanders that aren’t even citizens.
Iirc making people citizenshipless is even against international law?
Which islanders are you referring to?
People born in Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa all have American citizenship (just like Puerto Ricans).
American Samoans don’t get citizenship
https://ballotpedia.org/Citizenship_status_in_territories_of_the_United_States
Ok, technically they are US nationals but not US citizens. They still have US passports, but their passports are slightly different.
International law defines a “stateless” person as neither a national nor a citizen of any country. So the UN Conventions on Statelessness do not apply to American Samoans. Likewise the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights provide guarantees of “nationality”, not citizenship.
not illegal then, you’re right.
But it’s still an absolute shamelessnes that they aren’t even citizens of the country their homeland, their native land belongs to.
they’re not even citizens of a protectorate.
People born in American Samoa generally consider themselves citizens of American Samoa. Even though they have US passports, they can vote for their own government and write their own laws. Including laws that might be overturned by American courts if American Samoans were fully US citizens.
For example, there are restrictions on buying land in American Samoa if you are not a “blood” descendant of American Samoans.
It is prohibited to alienate any lands except freehold lands to any person who has less than one-half native blood…
If a person who has any nonnative blood marries another person who has any nonnative blood, the children of such marriage cannot inherit land unless they are of at least one-half native blood.
In other words, Mark Zuckerburg cannot swoop into American Samoa and buy half of an island.
That’s why it’s not so surprising that the government of American Samoans, as well as a majority of its citizens, is opposed to becoming US citizens. They have seen what happened to native Hawaiians, and they don’t want the same.
Sadly it’s not like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness
Canada, for example, withdraw the citizenship to children of Canadians that haven’t lived at least 1 year in Canada before 18yo
Edit: my information was out of date
Tell the Puerto Ricans that, we’re waiting on them reaching 51% in favor.
Taxation without representation
the nation that started as a rebellion on this is doing the same thing to its own citizens? that’s like building the land of the free using slave labor!
Well as long as we don’t live in an oligarchy I guess we’re ok then
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.”
His “set” absolutely reflects the views of Trump and his campaign. That is why he felt comfortable saying those things.
It’s not like the racism of Tony Hinchcliffe was a secret that he kept carefully hidden from public view which caught the organizers by surprise. It took me about a minute of searching who this guy was before landing on the Tony Hinchcliffe Wikipedia page which covers his racist performance in Austin just 3 years ago.
His whole set was also loaded into the teleprompter, so they knew what he was gonna say.
This was my thought. Like I find it VERY hard to believe his set wasn’t at least somewhat vetted beforehand. I cannot imagine they’d just let a comedian go up there and have absolutely no idea what he was going to talk about. That just seems like a total dumbass move so maybe it’s possible with Trump
Plausible deniability, a term coined by reagan’s minions to protect him from being impeached like nixon. It worked, ollie north took the fall
I don’t think I knew who he was back then. I looked it up and he’s not even trying to be clever, there’s no set up or premise, just slur. So cheap.
Edit: timestamp link.
I can just hear those MAGA morons smugly chuckling, “What can they do LOL they can’t even vote, fuck 'em!”
No, fuck you.
I look forward to the inevitable exit polls showing just how much Nazi Fest 2024 sank the GröpenFührer/Cöuchfücker ticket.
Come on, sanity! You can do it!
I saw a video of the ‘comedy’ that was said about Puerto Rico and I am honestly just fucking baffled as to why they hate them that much? I guess all they need to be to be hated is just be browner than they are.
Also how come the issue of Trump’s disgusting behavior during Hurricane Maria and his refusal to fully help them beyond a stupid stunt that had him throw a paper towel at someone’s face.
A lot of them don’t know that Puerto Ricans are Americans. So, add xenophobia to the racism.
Brown bad
- GOP
The GOP controllers aren’t the racists though. They’re rich, and puppets to the wealthy. In order to remain in positions of power, they create an enemy, in the form of bigotry and racism. Their sheep are racists. This is why though I trust very few politicians, I trust the Dems more atm because they are not using hatred and violence.
I’m not so sure, I bet some (or most?) of them are racist too. I’m sure they play it up, but do you really think they are all that accepting of people of color?
I think they are accepting of themselves and only thmselves so long as their selfishness is to benefit. For sure though, the act of leading people with racist rhetoric is as bad or even worse than racism itself.
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And?
I was thinking the guy is an idiot and meant to say Cuba but I have no idea. This is the first time I’ve ever heard anybody talk crap about Puerto Rico and it made no sense.
Trump has a bad record with Puerto Rico, hes shit on them a few times and blocked aid when they were hit with a hurricane during his admin
No. This is NOT shaping the race. VOTE
This changes nothing not a single Trump voter changed their minds. The Trump Puerto Ricans agree with this. They just think it’s the ‘others’ fault.
VOTE
I wish you were wrong
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.”
“All the stuff about you people being vermin that poison the blood of America, though, we meant that.”
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0065
There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
The electoral college was purely designed to let southerners use their slaves for votes. Letting Puerto Ricans vote doesn’t help Southerners cheat.
Reminder: The only reason Puerto Ricans cannot vote is because Republicans refuse to recognize it as a state, and they do that because they don’t want brown people to vote, and they don’t want brown people to vote because they don’t want them to exist.
As much as I hate the GOP, Puerto Rico has never attempted to apply for statehood. Their referendums on the subject have never shown a large enough amount of support for them to try a real vote. They’re typically around a 50-50 split.
Hear me out here, turn Puerto Rico into a state and combine both north and south Dakota into a new state called “One big Dakota”. We wouldn’t even need to change the flag, and the population of one big Dakota might break 5 digits.
Why is it that an American citizen living in, for example, France or any foreign country can vote but Americans in Puerto Rico can not?
Because the U.S. is a failed democracy. It labels places like Puerto Rico as a territory.
How are the Puerto Ricans represented in congress? Because not being able to vote for the executive branch is beginning to smell like taxation without representation.
Yes and no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Puerto_Rico
As with most things related to the U.S. government, it is complicated, bullshit, and hypocritical.
Because “No taxation without representation”? No wait, that doesn’t make sense.
The short answer is that deployment doesn’t count as permanent residence. You can still get a ballot from the state or territory that you used to reside in. You’re also required to pay federal, and depending on the state, state taxes.
You can be a dual citizen and be living outside of the US and still vote. You can be an American citizen who has never lived in America and vote. It’s not about permanent residency at all.
Good point. That said, the law is structured to allow people to get ballots from the “jurisdiction of their last residence.”
I think the cluste4fuck that was the aftermath of the earthquake in Puerto Rico was a unifying moment for America.
Trump’s supporters and haters all agreed that the President of Puerto Rico was a useless, arrogant, son of a bitch.
I really hope this is true and they can make a TRUE difference in the swing states. I was watching some interviews and in some cases there were Puerto Ricans that were annoyed but were still going to vote for Trump anyway!
Can American citizens living abroad vote?
