From this diary...
8:14 — MSNBC told by DNC rep from Puerto Rico that it was Sanders campaign that asked for smaller number of polling places.
As teacherken notes, a DNC official told MSNBC, not an hour ago, that the Sanders campaign had requested the cuts in polling places due to not having enough volunteers.
This is the post on twitter from the MSNBC reporter about it -→
This is a lie.
The excerpt from this Guardian article in the title (backed up by a statement from Roberto Prats, the leader of the Democratic Party of Puerto Rico), flatly debunks the party’s claim. As the Guardian states “Party leaders insist the decision to reduce the polling stations to 432 was a simple matter of resources, based on the... commission’s inability to fund and handle the extra workload of simultaneous local elections at so many sites”
Key words here:
“inability to fund”The Sanders campaign recently issued a statement on the Party’s accusations, calling them (among other things) “completely false” and stating that “they cannot blame their shoddy running of the primary of our campaign” but the most interesting part of the statement was this:
“In emails with the party, Sanders’ staff asked the party to maintain the 1,500 plus presidential primary locations promised by the Puerto Rico Democratic party in testimony before the DNC in April, when the party was asking to have its caucus changed to a primary.”
This was not because of the Sanders campaign.
This was not because they lacked the staff.
This was because, as the Guardian reports, and as party officials previously stated, of a lack of funds.
To say otherwise is not only misleading, or deceptive, but it is a lie.
And a sort of lie that deserves no place on a site that claims to be committed to “electing new and better Democrats”.
(Also… it’s worth noting that only 48,058 votes have been cast in the Puerto Rican Presidential primary with 54.63% reporting, meaning that less than 100,000 votes will have been cast in total. This marks a massive decline in voting as opposed to 2008 where 388,477 votes were cast.
That’s the kind of effect that almost 1,900 less polling places can have on voter turnout)