Meanwhile, Vázquez referred to as the problem “a disaster” and demanded the resignation of the president of the elections commission.

“They built the folks of Puerto Rico, not the candidates, consider that they have been well prepared,” she mentioned. “Today the opposite was apparent. They lied.”

The president of her social gathering, Thomas Rivera Schatz, along with the president of the principal opposition Well known Democratic Occasion, held a joint press meeting and reported they agreed the remaining primaries should be held on Aug. 16, a move that Vázquez said she supported. The two get-togethers are both equally holding their key elections with the successful nominees amid six gubernatorial candidates in November’s typical election.

Other politicians argued that the total key be scrapped and held at a further day.

An incredulous Schatz pointed out that there had been still trucks with ballots inside of parked at the commission’s headquarters as they spoke there.

“The dilemma is, why haven’t they still left?” he claimed.

A commission spokeswoman mentioned officers were being not straight away offered for comment.

To additional complicate issues, Edgardo Román, president of the Bar Affiliation of Puerto Rico, informed The Linked Push that it’s unclear what possibilities are legally practical simply because the island’s electoral law is not very clear.

“It doesn’t ponder this scenario,” he reported.

Hundreds of annoyed voters who wore the demanded encounter masks and braved a spike in COVID-19 situations were being turned away from centers across Puerto Rico as officers explained to them that no ballots were being obtainable.

The scenario infuriated voters and politicians of all stripes as they blamed Puerto Rico’s elections commission and demanded an explanation for ballots reaching only a handful of voting centers by the afternoon.

“This is indignant, abusive and an endeavor from the democracy of our country,” reported Marcos Cruz, mayor of the northern city of Vega Baja that was still awaiting ballots.

Meanwhile, officials from the island’s two major events scrambled to locate methods as they urged voters to even now show up at facilities that remained open.

Yadira Pizarro, a 44-calendar year-previous instructor, ran out of endurance at a shuttered voting heart in Carolina where by she had waited far more than 4 several hours beneath a blistering solar.

“I can not imagine this. This is some critical negligence,” she stated.

A person of the most carefully viewed races on Sunday is that of the professional-statehood Progressive New Celebration, which pits two candidates who served as alternative governors adhering to final year’s political turmoil. Vázquez faces Pierluisi, who represented Puerto Rico in Congress from 2009 to 2017.

Pierluisi briefly served as governor just after Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned in August 2019 following prevalent street protests around a profanity-laced chat that was leaked and authorities corruption. But Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court docket dominated that Vázquez, then the justice secretary, was constitutionally subsequent in line because there was no secretary of condition.

In the meantime, the primary opposition Preferred Democratic Get together, which supports Puerto Rico’s recent political status as a U.S. territory, is keeping a principal for the to start with time in its 82-year heritage. Three men and women are vying to become governor — San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, regarded for her public spats with U.S. President Donald Trump subsequent the devastation of Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico Sen. Eduardo Bhatia and Carlos Delgado, mayor of the northwest coastal town of Isabela.