Breaking. Bernie and the Puerto Rico voting mess.
This is just breaking. Democratic primary voting in Puerto Rico was a mess today. The plan was to have 1400-1500 polling places throughout the island, but when voting opened, there were 432 polling places. Talking head logic told us that this was due to local party budget cuts due to their financial crisis. Lines went anywhere from 2:30-4:00 to cast a ballot. Obviously some people just gave up and went home. Sounds like fodder for another Sanders claim of a “rigged” or unfair system costing him a primary.
Except, mebbe not. MSNBC reporter Tony Dokoupil, in San Juan just broke the story that he was talking to local Democratic officials at a party in San Juan who told him that budgetary cuts were not an issue. The local party was ready to open over 1000 polling places for the primary. But in Puerto Rico ballots are cast by hand. This requires one volunteer from each party to be present at the counting to certify each vote. Guess what? Bernie didn’t have 1000+ volunteers to fill the polling positions to certify the votes. According to the local party officials, it was the Sanders campaign that contacted the local party directly to negotiate the total number of polling places to match the number of volunteers to cover the vote count. They finally agreed on 432 polling places to allow the Sanders campaign to be properly represented.
This is one time that Senator Sanders cannot claim that the process was unfair, since it was his campaign that requested the accommodation, and the local party worked with him n the name of fairness.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/5/1534884/-Breaking-Bernie-and-the-Puerto-Rico-voting-mess
= new reply since forum marked as read
though. Because Hill won, there will still likely be allegations of "rigging" and the shortage of polling places will likely be cited as one reason - even when the shortage was due to the Sanders campaign itself. 
