Yesterday Party leaders blamed budget cuts for closing P.R. polling places. Today they blame Bernie: [View all]

[Cheese Sandwich]

To cut costs, voting was scheduled for the same day as local elections. In April, as the elections commission and treasury department tussled over the $3m tab of printing and counting papers, the ballot was at risk of not happening at all.

Now, further austerity cuts have slashed polling stations to fewer than one-third of the 1,115 sites originally announced last month, sparking accusations from supporters of Bernie Sanders of voter suppression.

The frustration is understandable given that Puerto Rico’s 67 delegates, 60 of them uncommitted, are crucial to Sanders’ fast-dwindling hopes of catching Hillary Clinton and becoming the Democratic nominee for November’s general election.

But party leaders in the US territory insist the decision to reduce polling stations to 432 was a simple matter of resources, based on the island electoral commission’s inability to fund and handle the extra workload of simultaneous local elections at so many sites.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/05/puerto-rico-democratic-primary-debt-crisis