In a two-part referendum that caused some confusion, some 54 percent of voters said they were dissatisfied with the relationship. The second question asked whether voters preferred becoming a U.S. state, an independent country, or a freely associated state (a type of independence in close alliance with the United States). Some 61 percent of those who answered voted for statehood on the second question, though more than 460,000 people intentionally voted blank.
Read: The Final Count!
Puerto Rico also chose a new governor on Tuesday, Alejandro Garcia Pailla, a Popular Democrat in favor of the status quo, ousting pro-statehood Republican Luis Fortuno.
Because Puerto Rico is not a state, residents were not eligible to vote in Tuesday’s Presidential election. Puerto Rico became a commonwealth in 1917, after Spain ceded the territory at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Puerto Rico Awaits Congress Vote & Final Details On Statehood
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