Puerto Rico is heating up VL’s comments section. What do people think about Congressperson Jose Serrano and Puerto Rico’s (non-voting) Congressional rep Luis Fortuno’s proposal of a new way for Ricans to vote on the future of their island? They are calling for not one but two votes.

The first vote, to happen next year, would have only two choices : for la isla del encanto to remain a U.S. territory or something else. If people vote to keep P.R. a territory, regular votes would have to happen to see if opinions change. If the something else option wins then another vote, to go down in 2009, would place statehood against independence.

The problem with earlier plebescites according to an article in this week’s Village Voice:

results were distorted by the number of choices. In 1993, commonwealth (49 percent) trumped statehood (46 percent) and independence (4 percent); in other words, most people voted to change the status but because they split over the options, the status quo prevailed. In 1998, 46 percent of voters backed statehood. Only one-half of one percent supported the status quo. But because 50 percent chose the bizarre option “none of the above,” the status quo prevailed.

Kepp in mind that according to law, however, any vote for any change in status would have to get the nod from the Unites States Congress, who holds the Rican purse strings, citizenship status and looking at Federal raids going down in Puerto Rico, the military power.

Via / The Village Voice