ACLU sues SEC, electoral commissioners to extend voter registration

State Elections Commission Alternate Chairwoman Jessika Padilla Rivera (Griselle Rosario)

By The Star Staff

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on Monday in federal court against the State Elections Commission (SEC) of Puerto Rico, the body’s electoral commissioners and alternate SEC chairwoman Jessika Padilla Rivera, as well as the Government of Puerto Rico, represented by Justice Secretary Domingo Emanuelli Hernández.

Plaintiffs Marina Espíritu, Francisco Concepción Márquez, Dante Vélez Iriarte and Iris Delia Torres López are asking the court for an injunction extending the voter registration deadline until Oct. 6, which is 30 days before the Nov. 5 general election.

“Plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that the Commission’s decision not to extend the voter registration deadline until October 6, 2024, violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution,” reads part of the lawsuit filed by the ACLU. “They also seek an injunction requiring defendants to implement policies allowing citizens to register up to 30 days before the November 5, 2024 general election.”

They are also seeking preventative measures to ensure that voters can register without facing current barriers, which include problems with the electronic registration system (eRE by the Spanish initials) and lack of staff at the Permanent Registration Boards (JIPs).

They also request that the government of Puerto Rico allocate the necessary resources, both personnel and financial, to ensure the right to vote in the November elections.

The plaintiffs argue that Puerto Rico’s current voter registration policies, implemented under the 2020 Electoral Code, are preventing thousands of eligible voters from registering, violating their constitutional right to vote as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit highlights that the eRE has been flawed, rejecting applications and creating a backlog of more than 81,000 registrations pending approval, disproportionately affecting young people and voters trying to reactivate their electoral status.

They also point out that the SEC’s decision to close voter registration before the legal deadline is arbitrary and seriously harms citizens who wish to exercise their right to vote.

Plaintiff Espíritu claims that she was unable to reactivate her voter registration due to errors in the eRE and the lack of physical accessibility, since she uses a cane and does not have a car to go in person to a JIP. The lack of organization and the reduction of JIPs negatively affected her ability to reactivate her registration before the established deadline, she claims.

Concepción Márquez, another plaintiff, claims that he tried to change his address in the eRE system but his application was incomplete, leaving him as an inactive voter. He attributes this to the lack of organization at the SEC, errors in the system and the reduction of JIPs, which prevented him from completing his update before the deadline.

Vélez Iriarte, meanwhile, claimed that he tried to register in the eRE but his application was rejected due to problems with his photograph and residence documentation. When he tried to correct the problems, the system did not allow him to make changes, leading him to create a new account, which is still pending approval.

Torres López, the fourth plaintiff, claimed she had problems reactivating her registration due to difficulty in finding her electoral number and the long waiting times at the JIPs. Although she was able to get help from a commissioner, the eRE system took more than two hours to upload her documents and her registration has not yet been approved.