Talk:2012 Puerto Rican status referendum

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Blank votes are valid votes. Only those that are invalid votes are not valid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.21.81.115 (talk) 01:14, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Can you give us any evidence for that? As far as I can see, blank votes are not properly counted as actual votes, and I have not seen any evidence that those blank votes are meant to carry a message other than those who have voted Yes in the first question. Raistuumum (talk) 01:42, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

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Polls?

Any information on the current polling results from the referendum? Is the referendum expected to succeed? Anything that talks about its current status in public opinion would be a helpful addition to the article. Zaldax (talk) 17:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing. Anything out there? --Lionheart Omega (talk) 17:45, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I was curious about it as well, as a newspaper article gave me the impression a vote was held on August 12th. However, Political status of Puerto Rico#2012 plebiscite states that the plan was to have two polls, one about whether or not to change the status (August 2012), and one for what the now status should be (November 2012), but that they are merged into a single referendum to be held in November 2012.

Buut, you guys probably mean gallup polls when I think about it, and yeah, that would be interesting to see. Jon Harald Søby (talk) 00:09, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

There are two newspapers publishing polls, but both only do so in their printed version so that people buy it. The first to publish them was El Nuevo Dia, which is genrally considered to lean towards the PPD:

• The first poll (march) had: Independence 3%, ELA Soberano (what has been described as "free association with double citizenship" by PPD members) 42%, Statehood 32% 
• The second (may) had: Independence 5%, ELA Soberano 45%, Statehood 36% 
• The third (august) had: Independence 5%, ELA Soberano 43%, Statehood 37%
• The remaining percent is either not voting or unsure which option they prefer.

The other newspaper is El Vocero, which is generally regarded to lean towards the PNP:

• They published the first sometime around March, which gave a 4% advantage to Statehood over the ELA Soberano, but I can't say what the percents were because they changed servers and all of the analisis were wiped.
• The second had a tie between Statehood and ELA Soberano at 39%.
  • In neither case El Vocero discussed independence in its analisis.

Old School WWC Fan (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:19, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

So, in other words, this is going to be a horse race. Cause, what I get out of this is the fact Puerto Rico is anywhere near decided on way or another. Seriously, what are the chances of a definitive result? --Lionheart Omega (talk) 19:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

In this referendum? I would say 10% or less, none of the options is likely to get anything over 52-53%. The only logical chance for a "definitive" result would be that all of the center-left wing parties formed some sort of alliance to support free association and make it something along the lines of "Statehood: Yes or No", given that the PNP is regarded as a common enemy. Old School WWC Fan (talk) 01:22, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Electoral method?

It's not entirely clear from the article how the two-stage, single-election plebiscite will work. If the "change the status quo" option fails to get a majority, is there an instant runoff/AV/STV resolution of the second question? First past the post? Including or excluding status quo from the second round? This sounds like it could produce some very odd results if preferences between several options are roughly evenly split, depending on the exact procedure used. 84.203.33.210 (talk) 10:02, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Both are tallied separately, the first supposed to judge if PR will change its territorrial status in January 2013, the second, which they prefer among the non-territorial options.

• The PNP has said that if they territory wins, they will continue to make these polls every two years regardless of who wins in the United States.
• The PPD has claimed that regardless if the territory wins or no, they are waiting one year (if Obama is reelected) for the White House to act as recommended in the task force's paper and will otherwise organize a constituent assembly in 2014. The MUS and PIP also support a constituent assembly.
• No idea what will happen if the PPD and Republican parties win...

Old School WWC Fan (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:32, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Puerto Rico’s Political Status and the 2012 Plebiscite: Background and Key Questions - Congressional Research Service CRS Report

Congressional Research Service Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report

Puerto Rico’s Political Status and the 2012 Plebiscite: Background and Key Questions

Adding results before vote counting is finished

Maybe adding in the results should wait until the vote count is complete? The official (I think) results page says: "REPORTED POLLING STATIONS: 1389 OF 1643 FOR 84.36%"... --Yair rand (talk) 07:27, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Really shouldn't. I've just fooled by that. I thought the election was over when I see the word "resulted". Then I went to the official page, it says it's still going on. --Wiki637※Talk 09:20, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Undue weight

Is it me, or are the criticism being given undue weight without any representation from those who disagreed? This presents a serious NPOV issue with the article as it stands. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

It seems like the section wouldn't be undue if the rest of the article was as developed as it should be, but it is currently far too large a section compared to the rest of the article. Ryan Vesey 03:31, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Current template

I feel that the information about this is not changing rapidly as the template suggests. The documentation page says it applies when 100's of editors are editing on the same day. It is meant to apply to breaking news. In this case, the event is finished and while more information will come about, there won't be an amount that necessitates the template. Ryan Vesey 03:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I guess. I just feel that 100s of editors editing is not relevant to whether or not an event is a current event. If we go by that standard then Category:Current events should be cleaned up. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 03:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I notice that some articles in that category seem to have been added manually. I would have no problem with adding this article to the category (I am unaware of anything that says we can't at least). {{Current}} is meant as a warning to readers so they understand that the article will be changing rapidly. Since that is not the case, the template shouldn't be there, even though it is a current event. Ryan Vesey 03:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Alright, that's acceptable to me. Maybe it would be a good idea to rework the {{recent event}} template to denotes current event articles that are not expected to change as rapidly. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 03:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

original research for understanding, not for article

Inclusion of original research in Wikipedia articles is prohibited. However, use of original research to understand the subject better then to write a better article is permitted and can be a good idea. With that disclaimer, I offer the following idea.

Those who use the referendum to support statehood may be using flawed logic.

The first referendum question is whether to stay the same or not. 54% say not, 46% want continued commonwealth status.

The second referendum question results of statehood is 61%. However, 46% want no change as was determined by the first referendum.

Hypothetically, it could be: 46% want commonwealth status, the current situation (this is not hypothetical but a true result)
33% want statehood
16% want sovereign free association state,
and 4% want independence.

If that is the case, then those who say that the will of the people is statehood could be proposing a false idea. In the numbers above, the most popular choice is commonwealth.

Now, perhaps reliable sources could be used to see if my idea is not a new idea. It would boggle the mind if I am the first to think of this. I really doubt that I am the first. Auchansa (talk) 05:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Without looking very hard, I found a citation:

said Luis Agrait, a history professor at the University of Puerto Rico. Secondly, a large number of ballots -- one-third of all votes cast -- were left blank on the question of preferred alternative status. If you assume those blank votes are anti-statehood votes, the true result for the statehood option would be less than 50%, Agrait argues.

From: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/election-puerto-rico/index.html This quote doesn't exactly cover my point, though. Auchansa (talk) 05:15, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

What if there were a referendum:

Question 1: Do you want spinach for dinner? Yes 30%, No 70%.

Question 2: If you are forced to not have spinach, do you want poop, cyanide, or urine? Urine 70%, Poop 16%, Cyanide 14%.

Conclusion: People prefer urine!

No!!!!! People actually prefer spinach if given that choice.

Auchansa (talk) 05:20, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

(Auchansa, please try to stay calm and remain civil. Thanks.)

Well, none of the following OR can be used in the article, but to explain a few things:

The referendum was asking about more than two choices, all of which were mutually exclusive, a decision which is mathematically impossible to decide fairly. People's preferences are complicated, allowing it to be that all options are directly going against the majority when pitted against some other option. This particular referendum "bundles" together three options, pitting them against one option (current status), and then counts a run-off between the remaining three options. It's certainly a sub-optimal method of decision-making, (for optimal you'd need to use an advanced Condorcet method like the Schulze method or Tideman method,) but it's no more incorrect than using the results of a run-off of switched-around options. Supposing that there was a referendum asking "Should Puerto Rico become a state of the USA?" and then "Which non-statehood option do you prefer?", then you would similiarly be likely to get a result that isn't supported by a majority against another particular option, and be in the exact same situation. It's impossible to fairly isolate any two options to decide between, and adding in the third option (even if it wouldn't win in any case) can flip the results straight backward, regardless of what vote system is used. (See Independence of irrelevant alternatives.) So, to answer, it is perfectly possible that the statehood result would be less-preferred than one specific potential alternative (in this case most likely the current status), but that doesn't actually mean it's not correct to use it as an indicator that the people support statehood. --Yair rand (talk) 05:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Of course, I am polite and nice. I always am. I was afraid nobody would respond. With your comment, we know there is a problem. Now we can look for citations. There are citations about why there are problems with the referendum. I do not know much about PR and prefer that somebody else take the lead. I merely thought of the idea. I read CNN (or was it somewhere else?) where there were questions to whether statehood was really the #1 choice. One professor interviewed said that combined with the blank ballots (hundreds of thousand), statehood got less than 50%.

I am not conducting the election but a possible fair way would be to ask:

What do you want?

___ Statehood ___ Commonwealth ___Sovereign Free Association ___ Independence

I think commonweath would get 46% (it did), statehood about 35%, SFA 15%, independence 4%. Auchansa (talk) 03:51, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not any kind of expert but it seems to me that the largest group voted for keeping things as they are. Borock (talk) 15:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Article is contradicting itself

In the intro, at one point it says that Puerto Ricans have rejected statehood and in the next sentence it sounds like it is saying that Puerto Ricans have voted in favour of statehood, saying that Puerto Rico "is expected to introduce congressional legislation admitting Puerto Rico to the Union". What do the results say? Have Puerto Ricans voted in favour of statehood within the United States or have they voted against it?--R-41 (talk) 20:40, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

The article makes clear it's not that straigtforward. A majority wants change; with statehood being the most given answer as to what that change should entail... That not a very clear answer, but not contradictory... L.tak (talk) 20:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

What if the questions had been: 1. Do you want Puerto Rico and the United States to continue to have a close relationship? 2. If so would you prefer the present arrangement or statehood? What do you think the answers would have been then? Borock (talk) 03:04, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Re: Blank votes

I do not see nor have found any evidence that blank votes are counted as valid, nor that the governor-elect had said to place the second question blank as a protest vote. I reverted the results back to the way they were depicted in the CEEPUR website. Raistuumum (talk) 01:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

This source says people were urged to vote no. I don't think we should change our percentages in the ballot at all, but we should write about the affect of the blank votes on the percentages. Ryan Vesey 01:58, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

As this is an opinion piece, I find this source rather dubious. If anything, the PDP would of urged voters to vote Yes on the first question, rendering the second question null no matter what answer. Raistuumum (talk) 02:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, my mind was in another place. The source says voters were urged not to vote. I doubt the author of the source is making up information. Ryan Vesey 02:42, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Hm... we'll have to wait for more sources then. All I'm finding so far is the governor-elect saying he is dismissing the referendum. Raistuumum (talk) 02:57, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, the source added is much more like it. Thanks to whoever added it. Raistuumum (talk) 04:48, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Since people kept changing the numbers in the table I went ahead and added a second column so both percentages can be seen. Should prevent some revert wars. — MK (^t/_c) 04:50, 9 November 2012 (UTC)