Efranys Rodríguez Calvo has not lived in Puerto Rico for six years. Since 2018, she has resided in the United States, where she participated in the 2020 elections. Upon hearing about issues with the registrations and deficiencies in Puerto Rico’s General Electoral Register (RGE, in Spanish), exposed by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI), she decided to check her electoral status through the State Elections Commission’s (CEE) Consulta del Elector web application. To her surprise, she read that she had voted in the November 2020 elections in Puerto Rico.

That’s impossible,’ Rodríguez Calvo told the CPI. “In 2020, I was living in Washington and voted in the U.S. presidential election.” She also sent proof from a website showing that in 2020, she was registered to vote in Washington and cast her vote there.

Since February 2022, Rodríguez Calvo has been registered to vote in Texas. However, the CEE has not deactivated her from the Electoral Register, meaning she remains eligible to vote in Puerto Rico. Many Puerto Ricans are in the same situation, active in two jurisdictions simultaneously. Many Puerto Ricans don’t go through the process of deactivating their registration in Puerto Rico when they move because they don’t know if they will return. However, the CEE could deactivate them, at least for those Puerto Ricans who moved to one of the 15 jurisdictions with which the agency has collaborative agreements, as these jurisdictions send voter information to the CEE.

After the CPI’s report was published a week ago, Rodríguez Calvo informed CEE Secretary Rolando Cuevas Colón of the incorrect information showing she had voted in Puerto Rico in the last elections and demanded clarification on whether a fraudulent vote had been cast using her identity.

“In this letter, I demand that you send me the list of signatures from the polling station where I supposedly voted in (Carolina) Puerto Rico, and I request that the State Elections Commission of Puerto Rico investigate and send me proof of the record of my vote and my signature from the 2020 election in Puerto Rico,” Rodríguez Calvo wrote in a letter that the CPI obtained access to.

“I am astonished that all this is happening before our eyes, and I feel like people don’t realize it,” said the Puerto Rican resident in Texas, who is worried about being listed as voting in two jurisdictions simultaneously, which is illegal, especially since she wasn’t even on the Island during the 2020 elections. “I don’t have anything to certify that I live in Puerto Rico,” she added, explaining that she doesn’t own any property in her name here.

“Who voted for me? My name is very uncommon [so it’s hard to confuse it],” Rodríguez Calvo said. “I have proof that I was in the United States,” she affirmed, wondering how the data, records, and votes are validated in Puerto Rico’s electoral system.

Another Puerto Rican voter who spoke with the CPI and Telemundo’s Rayos X, but who preferred to be identified by her middle name, Beatriz, for privacy and work-related reasons, explained that the CEE had created two separate accounts for her with different voter identification numbers.

On Friday, September 13, Beatriz began registering as a new voter through the CEE’s online platform, the Electoral Register (eRE). However, due to concerns about delays and hearing about issues with that system, and because the registration deadline was approaching, she decided to visit the Permanent Registration Board (JIP) in Hato Rey on Wednesday, September 18. There, she explained that she had registered online but wanted to get her physical voter card or find out how to obtain it. The JIP registered her, and she left with the card in hand.

On September 24, Beatriz received an email from the CEE notifying her that, following the process she initiated online, she had been registered to vote. When she accessed the online Electoral Register, she found that she had an electronic card with the photo she had submitted and a different voter number than the one she had been given by the JIP at the CEE a week earlier. The in-person transaction did not cancel or consolidate the process initiated online.

“It was a huge surprise to learn that I have two voter ID numbers,” Beatriz said. “Both numbers appear [in the Electoral Register] with my information and are listed as active.”

Beatriz said she is worried “that this could be used to commit fraud with my identity. It concerns me that in theory, although I know that in Puerto Rico they use ultraviolet ink (on the finger), this could allow someone to vote twice. If I were an unscrupulous person, in theory, I could go and vote twice.”

“I am sure I am not the only person in this situation,” Beatriz stated. “It makes me angry and frustrated with the incompetence of the State Elections Commission, which is unable to reconcile or synchronize [these records], because it seems like there are two different systems, and they don’t have the ability to reconcile them.”

Beatriz said that based on her experience, she distrusts the CEE’s claims that it quickly processed a large number of voter registrations and reactivations. On September 21, according to data published in the press, there were about 35,000 pending transactions in the Electoral Register. By September 29, the CEE claimed that only 4,779 remained.

“What guarantees do I have that they truly reviewed not only my documentation but also the documentation of all the people who registered or completed transactions through eRE? Because in their rush and due to their lack of preparation, things are going wrong,” Beatriz added.

The voter said she would return to the JIP to eliminate one of her voter records. However, it frustrates her that the responsibility for correcting her record falls on her when the error comes from an inefficient CEE system. “Why do I have to take a third step to ensure my vote counts?” she asked.

Marcos Noel was 34 years old when he died in 2019 in Ohio. His death certificate, shared by his family with the CPI, confirms this. What his relatives found odd wasn’t so much that he was still listed as active in the Electoral Register, but that the Register showed he had voted in November 2020, which is clearly impossible.

“How is it possible that the CEE can’t clean up the records?” asked Noel’s mother, who preferred to remain anonymous and said she felt indignation when she read in the Register that her son had voted in 2020, despite having died a year before the election. “It made me a little sad as well.”

She said she would discuss with her other son whether to request clarification from the CEE. She believes it’s crucial ‘to stop using the information of our loved ones who are no longer here,’ and that this be investigated thoroughly because it would be fraud if my son’s signature is found. And if it happens with another person and another, then that’s election theft, regardless of the party involved.”

After the CPI’s article on electoral irregularities — including voter fraud, tampered voter lists, and fake medical certificates for homebound voting — was published last week, the CPI has received hundreds of emails and social media messages recounting cases of false information in the official Electoral Register. Thousands of responses were also submitted to an online form the CPI published to gather information on the electoral status of deceased relatives or people who were off the island during the last elections.

The immediate reaction of the CEE’s Alternate President, Jessika Padilla Rivera, was to deny the accuracy of the CPI’s findings in a press release. However, she did not explain the discrepancies between the information in the Electoral Register and the reality of people listed as voters who had died or moved from Puerto Rico. She also failed to explain what steps, if any, the CEE would take to prevent voter list tampering or verify the authenticity of mail-in votes. Nor did she explain why voters’ data excluded from the General Register due to death is shared with political parties. However, Padilla Rivera did say that legal action would be taken against the CPI, standing by her claim that the Register only needs to exclude 16,000 deceased voters from 2023.

The official said, “We do not rule out the possibility of taking legal action against the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo following the admissions contained in the story published this past Tuesday, September 24, where they clearly admit to having accessed confidential and privileged citizen information found in the General Electoral Register.”

The CPI Executive Director Carla Minet called the legal threat outrageous, accusing the CEE of trying to intimidate the organization’s journalists in light of the scandalous findings about the CEE’s historical failures.

“This work seeks only to urgently address the problem of voter fraud, which clearly has been happening and could happen again in the upcoming November elections. If the Alternate President decides to follow through with her legal threat, we are more than prepared to face it,” Minet said, stressing that receiving information and documents from anonymous sources is an essential part of journalism, both in Puerto Rico and worldwide, and is protected as part of press freedom.

Shifting Narratives

Justifications for the discrepancies in the Electoral Register, including cases of votes cast by deceased individuals or those with birthdates from the 19th century, have varied. At first, the CPI was told the Register couldn’t contain people born in the 19th century. The explanation was that 1800 had been used as a placeholder for any voter whose record lacked a birthdate. Additionally, voters listed as having voted despite not doing so were said to belong to a group whose lists from the polling station had been lost. The most recent excuse involves errors in the electronic system.

By Friday, October 11, the Alternate President will be required to submit a report to José “Conny” Varela, President of the House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Affairs, on the purging of deceased voters or those no longer residing in Puerto Rico from the Electoral Register.

“The people of Puerto Rico demand an electoral process free from all possibilities of fraud,” Varela said. “It is important that Judge Padilla provide us with a detailed and complete report on the purging of deceased voters, so we can offer certainty and confidence to the electorate,” he added.

Politicians and analysts, primarily associated with the New Progressive Party (PNP) and the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), have criticized the complaints and those making them, rather than acknowledging the problems and proposing solutions to the irregularities.

Anadys Félix is one of the people who told the CPI that her deceased grandmother appears in the Electoral Register as a voter in 2016, even though she had passed away years earlier. Despite dying 13 years ago, the woman has not been removed from the Register. Félix also said that the CEE records show her grandfather voted in the 2020 elections, which he couldn’t have done because he was in the Dominican Republic at that time.

In a second interview with the CPI, Félix said she was outraged by comments intended to discredit her complaint, claiming her 95-year-old grandfather, Florencio Fernández Martínez, had personally reactivated his voter registration and voted in person. “My grandfather and my family are absolutely certain that my grandfather didn’t do either of those things,” Félix stated. She is seeking legal advice on the next steps to take.

“I don’t think we’ll go through the Commission because they have no interest in clarifying this,” Félix added. “We want the books opened to see who voted for him.”

Félix said her evidence includes passport stamps, which placed her grandfather in the Dominican Republic, where he had lived for several years. In June 2020, he visited the Island to celebrate Father’s Day, returned to the Dominican Republic, and returned to Puerto Rico in December for Christmas.

Federico Castellanos Diloné reported via email to the CPI that the CEE treated him like a liar despite the evidence he provided regarding his attempts to vote by mail in 2020. Castellanos Diloné told El Nuevo Día in March 2024 that he requested an advance mail-in ballot for the 2020 elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic but never received it, and therefore did not vote. However, the Electoral Register shows that he voted in that election.

The CEE claimed that Castellanos Diloné had requested to vote in person but did not attend. Castellanos Diloné denies this assertion. The Commission stated that if he was listed as a voter in 2020, it was likely because his polling station’s list was lost. He was marked as having voted, as supposedly directed by the Manual of Procedures for Election Officials. The report also noted that the ballots and the tally sheets from that event had been destroyed, making it impossible to verify the truth of the allegations.

Current and former CEE officials have also said in other media outlets and social media that they assign January 1, 1850, as the birthdate for voters whose records do not include a birthdate. However, the date issue is also due to the CEE’s failure to correct its data.

For example, Jovito González Carambot contacted the CPI to explain that his voter card lists his date of birth, although it’s incorrect. “When I went to get my card in 2004, they gave it to me with that date and told me it was a machine error, but that I could still vote, and I have been voting since then with that card,” he said. Although the machine error occurred 20 years ago, the CEE has not corrected this voter’s information despite having his address and phone number in the Register, and González Carambot knows his correct birthdate.

Political and Press Organizations Weigh In

The Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) told the CPI in a written statement that, to confirm that deceased voters are not among the mail-in ballots received by November, the CEE must “compare them against the list of excluded voters as the envelopes containing the ballots are received.”

For future elections, to avoid mail-in vote fraud, PIP Electoral Commissioner Roberto Iván Aponte Berríos said the CEE should “require medical certifications from those requesting homebound voting and establish a deadline for applications of 90 days before the election, so they can be reviewed and approved by local commissions.” These changes would require amendments to the 2020 Electoral Code.

Meanwhile, Jesús Manuel Ortiz, gubernatorial candidate for the PPD, told the press that the CPI’s investigation presents “serious allegations.” He believes “those accused of committing fraud have been from the PNP.” The CPI’s investigation cites a case of two PPD officials in Villalba in 2012 who were convicted of tampering with voter lists in a primary to favor certain candidates for the Legislative Assembly.

Javier Jiménez, the gubernatorial candidate for the Project Dignity party, expressed his opposition to any legal action against the CPI or its journalists.

“Transparency and accountability are essential to strengthening our electoral system. We should pay attention to the complaints instead of trying to silence the media and work together to correct weaknesses ahead of the next elections,” Jiménez said. “Journalists play a crucial role in our democracy, and the allegations of irregularities in the Electoral Register must be taken seriously, not met with legal retaliation. The CEE should aim for cooperation and transparency, not intimidation. We stand with the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo and its commitment to informing the public,” he added.

Jenniffer González, the New Progressive Party (PNP) gubernatorial candidate, did not respond to the CPI’s requests for comment on the investigation.

The Puerto Rico Journalists Association (Asppro) called the CEE president’s remarks highly questionable and concerning. The organization condemned the attempt to censor the press.

“We reject this attempt at silencing by the CEE’s alternate president and judge, Padilla Rivera. Journalists will not let our guard down, and we will not be intimidated. We will continue our duty to inform and hold institutions accountable, guided by the highest values of our profession, to ensure the people receive all the information without filters,” said Asppro President Nydia Bauzá.

The Overseas Press Club said Padilla Rivera’s behavior was outrageous.

“With her conduct, Judge Padilla Rivera joins the dishonorable list of officials who threaten to use the judiciary to censor and block journalists’ investigative work,” the statement read. “Revealing public interest information is at the core of journalism and is not subject to individual preferences. The CPI did its job, and it’s telling that the alternate president, instead of discussing the report’s details, focuses on threatening journalists,” said the organization’s president, Gloria Ruiz Kuilan.