2004 Puerto Rican general election
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General elections were held in
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. After a count by the State Commission of Elections, the winner was inaugurated to a four-year term as Governor of Puerto Rico on January 2, 2005. The post of Governor of Puerto Rico and the entire
House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
and the entire Senate, as well as the
Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
s of the municipalities of Puerto Rico, and the
Resident Commissioner Resident commissioner was or is an official title of several different types of commissioners, who were or are representatives of any level of government. Historically, they were appointed by the British Crown in overseas protectorates (such ...
were also elected for four-year terms. For the first time in Puerto Rican history, citizens unable to mobilize to voting colleges for medical reasons, but capable of practicing their right to vote, were visited in their own homes and hospitals so that they could exercise their vote.


Candidates for Governor

*
Aníbal Acevedo Vilá Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá (born 13 February 1962) is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer. He served as the governor of Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2009. He is a Harvard University alumnus (LL.M. 1987) and a graduate of the University of Puer ...
for the Popular Democratic Party *
Pedro Rosselló Pedro Juan Rosselló González, (; born April 5, 1944) is a Puerto Rican physician and politician who served as the governor of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001. He was President of the New Progressive Party from 1991 to 1999 and 2003 to 2008, a ...
for the New Progressive Party * Ruben Berrios for the
Puerto Rican Independence Party The Puerto Rican Independence Party ( es, Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, PIP) is a social-democratic political party in Puerto Rico that campaigns for the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States. Those who follow the PIP ...


Candidates for Resident Commissioner

* Edwin Irizarry Mora for the
Puerto Rican Independence Party The Puerto Rican Independence Party ( es, Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, PIP) is a social-democratic political party in Puerto Rico that campaigns for the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States. Those who follow the PIP ...
*
Luis Fortuño Luis Guillermo Fortuño Burset (born 31 October 1960) is a Puerto Rican politician who served as the governor of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, from 2009 to 2013. Fortuño served as the first secretary of econom ...
for the New Progressive Party *
Roberto Prats Roberto Prats Palerm (born 1966) is a former Senator of Puerto Rico, a lawyer, and a former candidate for Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico in the elections of 2004. He is affiliated and a member of the Governing Board of the Popular Democr ...
for the Popular Democratic Party


Results

Results were announced by the State Commission of Elections (CEE-PUR) on November 2–3, 2004 after the voting colleges closed on November 2 at 3:00 p.m. AST. On November 3, after 1,970,759 votes (98.3% of the total votes) were computed,
Aníbal Acevedo Vilá Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá (born 13 February 1962) is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer. He served as the governor of Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2009. He is a Harvard University alumnus (LL.M. 1987) and a graduate of the University of Puer ...
(PPD) was certified preliminarily as winning for Governor of Puerto Rico. On the other hand,
Luis Fortuño Luis Guillermo Fortuño Burset (born 31 October 1960) is a Puerto Rican politician who served as the governor of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, from 2009 to 2013. Fortuño served as the first secretary of econom ...
(PNP) was certified as
Resident Commissioner Resident commissioner was or is an official title of several different types of commissioners, who were or are representatives of any level of government. Historically, they were appointed by the British Crown in overseas protectorates (such ...
, while the Senate and the
House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
were also dominated by the New Progressive Party. The preliminary certification was signed by Gerardo Cruz, electoral commissioner of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), Brunilda Ortiz, alternate electoral commissioner of the New Progressive Party (PNP), and Andrés Miranda Rosa, alternate electoral commissioner of the
Puerto Rican Independence Party The Puerto Rican Independence Party ( es, Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, PIP) is a social-democratic political party in Puerto Rico that campaigns for the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States. Those who follow the PIP ...
(PIP). The alternate commissioners were authorized by the electoral commissioners in property of their party, Thomas Rivera Schatz (PNP) and
Juan Dalmau Juan Manuel Dalmau Ramírez (born July 23, 1973) is a Puerto Rican politician, attorney and a former candidate for Governor of Puerto Rico for the Puerto Rican Independence Party. Acevedo Vilá's margin of victory over
Pedro Rosselló Pedro Juan Rosselló González, (; born April 5, 1944) is a Puerto Rican physician and politician who served as the governor of Puerto Rico from 1993 to 2001. He was President of the New Progressive Party from 1991 to 1999 and 2003 to 2008, a ...
was of 3,566 (0.2%) votes, whereas Luis Fortuño had 11,137 (0.49%) votes of advantage against
Roberto Prats Roberto Prats Palerm (born 1966) is a former Senator of Puerto Rico, a lawyer, and a former candidate for Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico in the elections of 2004. He is affiliated and a member of the Governing Board of the Popular Democr ...
for
Resident Commissioner Resident commissioner was or is an official title of several different types of commissioners, who were or are representatives of any level of government. Historically, they were appointed by the British Crown in overseas protectorates (such ...
. Due to the small margin of victory being, the Puerto Rican electoral laws state that a recount must be performed, and that once this recount is finished, the official winner will be certified by the CEE-PUR. The recount started on Monday, November 9 as established by law, and had to finish by December 31 or earlier. During the period, Rosselló filed a civil lawsuit against Acevedo Vilá himself over a dispute of certain ballots that were cast during the elections. This led to a protracted controversy involving appeals to the
United States federal courts The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primaril ...
and the
Supreme Court of Puerto Rico The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ( es, Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico) is the highest court of Puerto Rico, having judicial authority to interpret and decide questions of Puerto Rican law. The Court is analogous to one of the state supreme c ...
. The ballots in question were cast by marking the
Puerto Rican Independence Party The Puerto Rican Independence Party ( es, Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, PIP) is a social-democratic political party in Puerto Rico that campaigns for the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States. Those who follow the PIP ...
or New Progressive Party (i.e. marking a cross under the emblem of one of these parties) in addition to placing individual candidate marks (crosses) in favor of Acevedo Vilá as the candidate for governor of the Popular Democratic Party and
Roberto Prats Roberto Prats Palerm (born 1966) is a former Senator of Puerto Rico, a lawyer, and a former candidate for Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico in the elections of 2004. He is affiliated and a member of the Governing Board of the Popular Democr ...
, the Popular Democratic Party's candidate for
Resident Commissioner Resident commissioner was or is an official title of several different types of commissioners, who were or are representatives of any level of government. Historically, they were appointed by the British Crown in overseas protectorates (such ...
. The mark indicating the selection of a political party selects that party's slate of candidates by default, but the voter can also select individual candidates from other parties to replace candidates from the default slate. The controversy reached the
Supreme Court of Puerto Rico The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ( es, Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico) is the highest court of Puerto Rico, having judicial authority to interpret and decide questions of Puerto Rican law. The Court is analogous to one of the state supreme c ...
, which ruled 4–3 that the ballots in question were valid. In its initial opinion, the Supreme Court majority interpreted the challenged ballots as indicating that voters were voting for the PIP as a party for the purposes of stating party affiliation (and for the PIP's default slate) but had decided to move their votes to individual candidates from other party's slates. This type of vote, described as a "mixed vote", is permitted in Rule 50 of the State Election Commission's rules, based on the Commonwealth's Electoral Law as amended in 2004, Title 2, Section 2.001, Subsection 3. The practice is therefore considered legal and has been published in the official voter's instructions by the State Election Commission for quite some time. This voting option was also allowed and seen in the 1996 and 2000 elections, and had never been contested before, either at the Legislature or by the NPP's Electoral Commissioner. The individual votes for candidates not from the voter's selected party are then deducted from the votes given to the default candidates of the voter's party. The end result is a single vote per candidate. At the same time, Rosselló challenged the ballots on the
United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico The United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico (in case citations, D.P.R.; es, Tribunal del Distrito de Puerto Rico) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The court is ...
where District Judge Daniel Domínguez ordered the Puerto Rico Election Commission to count the disputed votes but to not adjudicate them to any candidate until he reached a decision on the merits of the case. Acevedo Vilá and his team challenged this ruling and the case moved up to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, where three judges ruled the question of whether or not the ballots were properly cast was not a federal constitutional issue in the case '' Rosselló-González v. Calderón-Serra'' and therefore should be decided by the
Supreme Court of Puerto Rico The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ( es, Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico) is the highest court of Puerto Rico, having judicial authority to interpret and decide questions of Puerto Rican law. The Court is analogous to one of the state supreme c ...
at the Commonwealth level. The Supreme Court affirmed its prior 4–3 decision. On December 28, 2004, the recount ended and Acevedo Vilá was certified as winner and therefore Governor elected. Once the official winners were announced, they were inaugurated to four-year terms on January 2, 2005.


PIP loses its franchise

On a different note, the Puerto Rican Independence Party was unable to reach 3% of the total votes on the preliminary results, putting in risk their franchise as a principal political party by Puerto Rican electoral laws. Because of this, the party may not receive funds from the
government of Puerto Rico The government of Puerto Rico is a republican form of government with separation of powers, subject to the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United States.USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
) nor have a separate column in
ballot paper A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in secret voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16t ...
s on the following elections. However,
Maria de Lourdes Santiago Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial * 170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 *Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, d ...
became the first woman from that party to be elected senator in the
history of Puerto Rico The history of Puerto Rico began with the settlement of the Ortoiroid people between 430 BC and AD 1000. At the time of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1493, the dominant indigenous culture was that of the Taínos. The Taí ...
.


Governor


Resident Commissioner


Senate

, - ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:left;vertical-align:top;" colspan=2 , Parties ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , District
Votes ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , District
% ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , District
Seats ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , At Large
Votes ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , At Large
% ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , At Large
Seats ! style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:right;" , Total , - , style="background-color:blue" , , style="text-align:left;" , New Progressive Party (''Partido Nuevo Progresista'') , style="text-align:right;" , 1,845,204 , style="text-align:right;" , 48.6 , style="text-align:right;" , 11 , style="text-align:right;" , 845,228 , style="text-align:right;" , 44.3 , style="text-align:right;" , 6 , style="text-align:right;" , 17 , - , style="background-color:red" , , style="text-align:left;" , Popular Democratic Party (''Partido Popular Democrático'') , style="text-align:right;" , 1,768,374 , style="text-align:right;" , 46.6 , style="text-align:right;" , 5 , style="text-align:right;" , 767,626 , style="text-align:right;" , 40.3 , style="text-align:right;" , 4 , style="text-align:right;" , 9 , - , style="background-color:green;" , , style="text-align:left;" ,
Puerto Rican Independence Party The Puerto Rican Independence Party ( es, Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, PIP) is a social-democratic political party in Puerto Rico that campaigns for the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States. Those who follow the PIP ...
(''Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño'') , style="text-align:right;" , 160,632 , style="text-align:right;" , 4.2 , style="text-align:right;" , 0 , style="text-align:right;" , 178,541 , style="text-align:right;" , 9.4 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , style="text-align:right;" , 1 , - , , , style="text-align:left;" ,
Independent Movement of the Eastern Region Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independen ...
(''Movimiento Independiente Region Este'') , style="text-align:right;" , 2,936 , style="text-align:right;" , 0.1 , style="text-align:right;" , 0 , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , - , - , style="background-color:white" , , style="text-align:left;" ,
Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...
, style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , 97,673 , style="text-align:right;" , 5.1 , style="text-align:right;" , 0 , style="text-align:right;" , - , - , style="background-color:white" , , style="text-align:left;" , Others , style="text-align:right;" , 826 , style="text-align:right;" , 0.0 , style="text-align:right;" , 0 , style="text-align:right;" , 297 , style="text-align:right;" , 0.0 , style="text-align:right;" , 0 , style="text-align:right;" , - , - , style="text-align:left;background-color:#E9E9E9" colspan=2, Total (turnout 81.7 %) , style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9" , 3,777,972 , style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9" , 100.0 , style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9" , 16 , style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9" , 1,889,365 , style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9" , 100.0 , style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9" , 11 , style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9" , 27 , - , colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" , Blank and Null Votes , style="text-align:right;" , 17,245 , style="text-align:right;" , 0.4 , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , 17,245 , style="text-align:right;" , 0.7 , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , - , - , colspan=2 style="text-align:left;" , Total votes cast , style="text-align:right;" , 3,795,217 , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , 1,906,610 , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , - , style="text-align:right;" , - , - , colspan=8 style="text-align:left;" , Source:
Elections Puerto Rico
, -


House of Representatives


References

# "2004 General Elections"
State Commission of Elections of Puerto Rico
San Juan, Puerto Rico. November 3, 2004.
CEE preliminarily certifies Acevedo Vilá and Fortuño
San Juan, Puerto Rico: ''El Nuevo Día''. November 3, 2004.


External links


State Commission of Elections of Puerto Rico
- official site (in Spanish) {{Puerto Rican elections 2004
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
General election