Puerto Rico’s Plebiscites

Since 1967, seven votes have been held in Puerto Rico asking people what type of relationship they would like for Puerto Rico to have with the United States. This relationship is commonly called Puerto Rico’s “political status.”

The seven referenda on Puerto Rico’s political status –  referred to as plebiscites – were held in 1967, 1993, 1998, 2012, 2017, 2020, and 2024.

Today Puerto Rico remains a territory of the United States. Under the U.S. Constitution, there are two other options for Puerto Rico’s political status:  Puerto Rico could become a State of the Union, as Hawaii did in 1959, or a sovereign independent nation like the Philippines did in 1946.

Congress has the power to end Puerto Rico’s territorial status by simply enacting a law to do so.

Members of Congress, however, typically first want to know how Puerto Ricans feel about their status options.

That’s where the plebiscites come in.

Plebiscite results

Each of the seven ballots used over the years in Puerto Rican plebiscites has been structured differently, and the “commonwealth” option, when it is included on the ballot, is never defined precisely in the same way. There has also been much confusion over the years on the fate of U.S. citizenship in a newly sovereign Puerto Rico, with some voters convinced that their U.S. citizenship would continue in a new foreign country despite years of statements to the contrary by U.S. government officials and legal scholars. Debates over Puerto Rico’s political status, which continue today, typically focus on which status options to include on a plebiscite ballot and how to define those options.

The Ballots: Four Approaches Since 2000

The 2024 plebiscite ballot presented voters with the three options that were included in the Puerto Rico Status Act as passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022: statehood, independence, and sovereign free association. Free Association is essentially independence for a small island nation along with a strong U.S. military presence that exercises power over the island’s national security.

The 2020 vote was a straightforward “statehood-yes-or-no” vote.  52.52% of the voters chose statehood; 47.48% of the voters chose the “anything but statehood” option – which gave proponents of independence (with or without a free association option) and the current territorial status a single option to register their preference.

The 2017 ballot combined independence and independence with a free association together as a single option for voters, based on a U.S. Department of Justice recommendation. The ballot also included the “current territorial status/actual status territorial” option – sometimes referred to as “commonwealth” – which received 1.35% of the vote.

The 2012 vote had two parts.  The first question asked voters whether they wanted to maintain Puerto Rico’s “present form of territorial status.” Voters rejected that option by a 54-46 margin.  In a second vote, 61.3% of the voters chose statehood, 33.2% chose free association and 5.5% voted for independence. The U.S. Department of Justice later expressed concern over the presentation of free association as a status option for voters unless it is “clear that a vote for ‘Free Association’ is a vote for complete and unencumbered independence.”

The Options: Independence

Independence has never received much support in Puerto Rico plebiscite votes. The best showing it ever received before 2024 was 5.5%. The more recent 12% represents a roughly 6-point increase in support for this option, but it is still far behind statehood, which also showed a 6-point increase over the 2020 total.

Many Puerto Rican voters are concerned about losing their U.S. citizenship if Puerto Rico ends its status as a U.S. territory and becomes an independent nation. Some Puerto Rican voters have been said to vote for independence with the hope that they would be able to keep their U.S. citizenship even as a foreign country, and this false hope may be inflating even the current small support for independence.

The people of Puerto Rico were granted U.S. citizenship in a 1917 federal law. In the 50 states, people are guaranteed U.S. citizenship under the U.S. Constitution upon birth.  This Constitutional guarantee is more secure than U.S. citizenship provided through a basic federal law

What Will Happen to U.S. Citizenship in a New Nation of Puerto Rico? The Word from Washington

The Options: Independence with free association

As a sovereign independent nation, Puerto Rico could have bilateral treaties with the U.S.

There are three sparsely populated island countries in the Pacific Ocean that have relinquished control over their military and national security to the U.S. in rough exchange for minimal, temporary economic assistance and the ability of their citizens to work and travel to the U.S. without a visa.  These bilateral treaties, which can be ended by either side, are referred to as compacts of free association.

No current compact of free association includes U.S. citizenship, and Washington has been clear that it cannot guarantee U.S. citizenship to a sovereign nation of Puerto Rico.

In addition, Congress has, at times, even enacted laws that take away benefits provided for FAS citizens in the bilateral compacts, apparent oversights that have taken decades to correct.

Free association is inherently independence.  At their core, both options involve sovereignty for Puerto Rico.  This was made clear in the 2017 plebiscite ballot, which presented free association and independence together as one option.

Free association has also been offered to Puerto Rican voters as its own option on plebiscite ballots, separate from independence.

In 1998, free association received .3 of the vote, and independence received 2.6% of the vote.

In 2012, in a two-part ballot, 53.97% of the electorate voted to end Puerto Rico’s territorial status.  In a follow-up question, over 60% of voters chose statehood, 33.34% selected free association, and 5.49% voted for independence.  The increased interest in free association from 1998 to 2012 is consistent with the growing misperception in Puerto Rico that U.S. citizenship would be secure under a free association relationship.

In 2024, the sovereign free association option garnered 31% of the vote.  This increase may reflect the mistaken belief that U.S. citizenship would be secured for any length of time under this arrangement. There is no such guarantee. Of the options provided on the 2024 plebiscite, U.S. citizenship would be “recognized, protected, and secured” only under statehood.

The Options: Statehood

Statehood’s share of the vote increased over the years from 39% in 1967 to 97.2% in 2017.  Most recently, statehood received 52.52% of the vote in the 2020 plebiscite, and 58% in 2024.

The four most recent votes – in 2012, 2017, 2020, and 2024 – resulted in statehood as the top choice.  Each vote was certified by the Puerto Rico State Election Commission.

The popularity of statehood lies, at least in part, in the fact that U.S. citizenship under statehood is secured through the U.S. Constitution.

The Puerto Rico Status Act makes it clear that under the statehood option “U.S. citizenship of those born in Puerto Rico is recognized, protected, and secured under the U.S. Constitution in the same way such citizenship is for all U.S. citizens born in the other States.”

The other two options on the act’s recommended ballot – independence and sovereign free association – do not contain similar language recognizing, protecting, or securing U.S. citizenship for the people of Puerto Rico.

The Options: Commonwealth

Commonwealth has been the historical stumbling block for the resolution of Puerto Rico’s status.  The term “commonwealth” means different things to different people, and it is constantly changing.

“Commonwealth” got a majority of the votes in 1967, when it was widely understood in Puerto Rico to mean an “enhanced commonwealth” with a vast swath of new privileges for Puerto Rico — a discredited idea that has been declared unconstitutional and impossible by all three branches of the federal government.

“Commonwealth” had a narrow plurality in 1993, but Congress could not act on that vote because the term was again defined in a way that was invalid under the U.S. Constitution.

The “commonwealth” definition on the 1967 ballot is different from the “commonwealth” option presented as a valid option to the Puerto Rican people in 1993.

In 2011, Congress’s official nonpartisan research resource – the Congressional Research Service (CRS) – made this point clearly in a chart describing Puerto Rico’s plebiscite history by adding footnotes to describe the variations of “commonwealth” options on ballots over the years.

More recently, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has stated that a plebiscite ballot should include a “commonwealth” option.  DOJ used the term to represent the island’s current territory status.  The Department of Justice has never endorsed the expanded “enhanced commonwealth” arrangement. Members of Congress and U.S. Presidents of both major national political parties have been clear over decades that an “enhanced” or “developed” commonwealth has no place on a plebiscite ballot.

Updated on February 3, 2025