1998 Puerto Rican status referendum

1998 Puerto Rican status referendum

13 December 1998
We, the People, in the searches of the power vested upon us by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, do hereby firmly petition the Congress of the United States, that with all deliberate haste, and after one hundred years of political subordination, the political condition of the People of Puerto Rico and the scope of the sovereignty of the United States of America be defined in an unequivocal manner in order to resolve the present territorial problem of the island under the following options:
Results
Statehood   46.6% Independence   2.6% Free association   0.3% Territorial commonwealth   0.1% None of the above   50.5%
Results by municipality

A referendum on the political status of Puerto Rico was held on December 13, 1998.^[1] Voters were given the choice between statehood, independence, free association, being a territorial commonwealth, or none of the given options. A majority voted for the latter, with a turnout of 71.3%.^[2]

Five alternatives were listed on the ballot: "limited self-government"; "free association"; "statehood"; "sovereignty"; and "none of the above." Disputes arose as to the definition of each of the ballot alternatives; and commonwealth advocates, among others, reportedly urged a vote for "none of the above." They asserted that the commonwealth definition on the ballot "failed to recognize both the constitutional protections afforded to our U.S. citizenship and the fact that the relationship is based upon the mutual consent of Puerto Rico and the United States." In the end, a slim majority of voters in that plebiscite selected "none of the above" (50.3%).^[3]