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Poll Shows 48% Of Puerto Ricans Favor Statehood, Election
Day Majority Within Reach
November 24, 1998
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- In a boost to Gov. Pedro Rossello's
push for U.S. statehood , a new poll shows 48 percent of Puerto
Ricans would vote to join the union.
Equally significant, 63 percent of undecided voters say they
are more likely to vote for statehood because of the full benefits
of US citizenship, clearly enough to push statehood into a majority
come election day, if the general dynamic of the electorate remains
intact.
Further contributing to the statehood surge is the perception
among nearly two-thirds of the respondents that Congress would
act favorably to a statehood petition if voters chose it in the
plebiscite.
The survey of 829 likely voters, conducted by Mason-Dixon Research,
Inc., the mainland's most active state election and issue polling
firm, found the rest of voters in this U.S. territory are divided
among a variety of options including the current commonwealth
status quo, independence, "free association," essentially
independence with treaty ties to the United States, and "none
of the above."
Puerto Ricans will choose among the options in a Dec. 13th
vote on the island's future relationship with the United States.
The islandwide telephone poll was taken between Nov. 7th and Nov.
15th.
The results, which have a 3.5% margin of error, appeared to
be a major setback for the opposition pro-commonwealth Popular
Democratic Party. Having lost a federal court battle to stop
the plebiscite it has called on its supporters to derail the referendum
by voting for the "none of the above" option.
About 24% of people polled chose the current commonwealth arrangement,
18% chose "none of the above," 3% chose independence
and 2% chose free association.
Although 5% of people surveyed were not sure how they would
vote, a statistical analysis of this crucial voting bloc indicated
that they were more inclined to share the views of statehood supporters
than advocates of the other options. For example, US citizenship
is a big winner with undecided voters, 58 percent of whom say
that they would be more likely to vote for statehood based on
this issue alone.
Pro-commonwealth forces have been arguing over the definition
of commonwealth provided on the ballot. It's own commonwealth
definition, having failed to get a majority in the 1993 plebiscite,
was omitted from this year's ballot following a congressional
determination that it was constitutionally defective and incapable
of implementation.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 856, the US-Puerto
Rico Political Status Act and the Senate followed by unanimously
approving S. Res. 279 this year, both of which endorsed the final
determination of Puerto Rico's political status through a local
plebiscite. Puerto Rico was acquired from Spain in the 1898
Spanish-American War and has been subsequently administered by
Congress under the Territorial Clause of the Constitution.
In response, Governor Rossello called a non-binding vote in
the hope that the statehood option would prevail and spur Congress
to admit Puerto Rico to the Union as the fifty-first state. Rossello
is confident that Congress would implement a statehood petition
as 1998 polls have found that an overwhelming majority of mainland
voters would favor admission of Puerto Rico to the Union if the
island's electorate so choose.
Under the current commonwealth, the island's 3.8 million residents
are U.S. citizens but cannot vote for president and have no vote
in Congress. They pay no U.S. taxes but received limited federal
benefits, and they can be drafted into the U.S. military.
The poll was commissioned by the Puerto Rico Herald -- www.puertorico-herald.org
-- and conducted by Mason-Dixon Research, Inc. of Annapolis,
MD.
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