Primaries grind to a halt in Puerto Rico

Many voting centers lacked ballots when Puerto Ricans went to the polls on Sunday, and only 60 of the island’s 110 precincts were able to return results. The logistical problems forced the U.S. territory’s officials to halt and reschedule the primaries for the first time.

What happens now? The island’s Supreme Court will have to decide whether to move forward with a second primary on Aug. 16 for polling places that couldn’t open on Sunday. Opposition candidates for the governor’s seat filed a lawsuit over the disrupted election. An electoral commission official for the New Progressive Party said some officials knew about the problems but did nothing to fix them. Gov. Wanda Vázquez and other leaders demanded that the president of the elections resign.

Dig deeper: Read Harvest Prude’s report in The Stew about the ongoing political turmoil in the U.S. territory.