By The Star Staff
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia insisted Monday that the credibility of Puerto Rico’s electoral system cannot be challenged because of the controversy over some false endorsements.
“Well, I do, I think it’s out of place to be undermining the credibility of the commission when our State Elections Commission is used as an example not only in the United States but internationally,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “The last elections were a different situation because there we were talking about an election in the middle of a pandemic. Those were extraordinary situations. In this one, both at the primary and [general] election level, what I anticipate is that it is a normal process.”
“Situations have arisen with the technology that is being used, but action is being taken in terms of endorsements,” Pierluisi added. “The current system provides that the person who gives the endorsement receives either a text or an email and has the opportunity to say if they did not give it, complain right there, raise the situation and I think there is a term of five days for that to be done. What they are proposing now for in the future is that within the electronic system that is being set up, also at any time, someone can see who I endorse; that is, who endorsed who and the system provides that information. That’s what could be done in the future, but from what I’m seeing, there aren’t that many incidents of alleged fraudulent endorsements. The few that are there are under investigation and we will know the outcome of that investigation.”
So far, a referral has been made to the FBI regarding an endorsement attributed to Nelsa López Colón, widow of former governor Rafael Hernández Colón, of Elmer Román González, who is vying to become the resident commissioner candidate of the New Progressive Party (NPP).
In the wake of the incident, there have been reports of people listed as endorsers of Popular Democratic Party and NPP candidates that are believed to be false.