Espíritu v. Comisión Estatal de Elecciones

Under Puerto Rico law, the voter registration deadline before a general election can be no later than 30 days before Election Day. The law, however, gives the Board of Elections (Comision Estatal de Elecciones) discretion to set an earlier deadline. Until April of this year, it was understood that the registration deadline would be the shortest time possible and cut off registration on October 6. In April, however, the Board resolved to end voter registration 45 days before Election Day.

This 45-day deadline alone would be the most restrictive of any U.S. jurisdiction, but its effect has been made worse because of several factors well reported in local media. These include: rolling blackouts that have shut down registration offices for days at a time; a botched rollout of an online registration system; and drastic cuts to in-person registration opportunities, as compared to past cycles. In the run-up to the 2020 election, for example—at the height of the Covid pandemic—Puerto Rico registered 121,000 new voters. As of late September, however, only 59,000 new voters had successfully registered. Meanwhile, the Elections Board reported that at least 81,000 new registrations or changes in address have been filed but have not yet been processed because of staffing constraints.

Representing individual impacted plaintiffs who have been unable to register or reactivate their registration, the ACLU and ACLU of Puerto Rico sued Puerto Rico’s Board of Elections. We ask that the Board exercise its discretion to extend the registration deadline to October 6—which Puerto Rico law empowers it to do. Such a change would ensure that thousands of eligible voters are successfully added to Puerto Rico’s voter rolls and are not disenfranchised.

Update: On October 1, 2024, the district court denied Plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction and dismissed their case for claimed lack of jurisdiction.