this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
874 points (98.9% liked)

News

23301 readers
3511 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

State or not I think its pretty ridiculous that they are american citizens but can't vote for president of the united states... People living in DC get to vote and aren't living in a state.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But they choose to not. One of those cake and eat it too scenarios.

A territory like them is eligible for Federal money from various programs, while not having to pay Federal income tax. If they became a state, they'd then have to pay income tax, lose benefit of the free program money, but be allowed to vote.

If you don't want to fully commit to the whole package and are milking the advantages of being a territory, should you really get a right to choose how the package that is being taxed and giving you free money is steered?

(Oversimplification, of course.)

If I were a member of a territory, I don't really know where my thoughts would land.

However, as one that is taxed, it seems that allowing the untaxed to choose our taxed destiny would be disingenuous.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago

You make it sound like Puerto Rico is some tax haven where they don't pay the federal government anything, but Puerto Rico pays more in total federal taxes than 6 US states.

[–] mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Only citizens residing in a state for the majority of the year can vote for federal elections. Basically you need a senator to vote federally. Hawaii and all other states were the same way when they too were territories. All PR needs to do is vote for statehood and then I guess the political shitshow starts as well as flag redesign.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Except we made an exception for citizens that reside in Washington DC. They have no representative in the senate, but were given 3 electoral college votes for president and vice president.

So we totally can (and have) extended the right to vote to citizens living outside one of the 50 states to vote, we just won't for Puerto Rico. :(

[–] mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 weeks ago

That exception was the 23rd amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-third_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Puerto Ricans as an example don’t meet the same conditions e.g. paying federal income tax. Hence statehood as their option to representation.

[–] wolfpack86@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

You aren't correct. https://www.fvap.gov/citizen-voter/voting-residence

You generally need to have established residency in a state at some point in your life, but there is zero requirement to spend any time there if you live abroad in order to retain your voting rights. Several states allow children who have been born overseas the right to vote at their parents last US address.

However, because Puerto Rico is part of the United States, residents there (even if you retired there after living in New York your entire life) fall under the rules for Puerto Rico.

So, you can live in Mexico as a US Citizen, permanently, and retain voting rights in your last state... Or you can live in Puerto Rico and lose the ability to vote for president.

[–] mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Fair should have said Puerto Ricans.

[–] wolfpack86@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

US Citizens that reside in Puerto Rico.

[–] mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

Sure just better to say Americans that haven’t resided in a state in the past then. Or more simply Puerto Ricans but at some point I feel like we’re just language lawyering here.