---
With less than 40 days remaining until the general election, pro-statehood attorney Gregorio Igartúa has lodged a complaint with the electoral comptroller against the “Alliance” established by the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) and Citizen Victory Movement (MVC) to trade their votes for each other’s candidates, asserting that it breaches both local and federal regulations.
This marks the second time since last year that the legality of the Alliance has come under scrutiny.
As per Igartúa’s complaint submitted last week, the Alliance’s arrangement constitutes an illegal federal and state conspiracy aimed at undermining electoral laws and misrepresenting voters’ choices. It should not go unchallenged.
“Take, for instance, the MVC backing the PIP’s Juan Dalmau [Ramírez] for governor, in return for his party casting votes for the MVC’s candidate for resident commissioner, Senator Ana I. Rivera Lassén,” Igartúa noted. “This collusion extends beyond high-level electoral positions to candidates at various lower tiers of government.”
The complaint includes promotional materials guiding voters on how to vote for the Alliance.
Leaders of both parties contend that the Alliance is constitutionally valid under the umbrella of free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.
“Nevertheless, this situation transcends mere free speech from the candidates,” Igartúa remarked. “There are boundaries, particularly when, as seen here, the actions interfere with other constitutional rights. The Alliance infringes upon equal protection under the law and the rights to due process established by the United States Constitution.”
“When weighing the political harm to candidates from other parties that do not engage in collusion, the equal protection of the laws and their rights to due process are compromised due to the unlawful pact between PIP and MVC leaders, which creates a manipulated advantage for their candidates,” he stated in the complaint.
Igartúa further asserted that the Alliance represents a deceitful scheme in its exploitation of public funds, as each party is an independent beneficiary of state funding through the false pretenses of having conspired with a quid pro quo arrangement to exchange and swap their candidates.
“They instigate and acquire a political-financial edge over the other parties,” he stated.
“The conspiracy aims to defraud our democratic system by manipulating the electorate’s votes, including participation in a scheme where the support for certain candidates from one party is exchanged or traded for the backing of candidates from the other party, and vice versa, contravening federal and state laws,” the attorney articulated.
Voters have the legal right to cast what is known as a mixed vote, allowing them to select candidates from different parties on the same ballot in a single election.
“However, a pact between the leaders of two parties to encourage their members to submit a mixed vote on the same ballots for one candidate for an office in exchange for a vote for a candidate from the other party is unlawful,” Igartúa explained. “It represents a gerrymandering agreement to secure advantages for each party’s candidates by undermining the electoral process, made worse if both receive public funding.”
Under federal law, there are penalties when two or more individuals conspire to deny another person equal protection under the law or the same privileges and immunities.
In the Alliance, PIP and MVC conspirators undermine the electoral process, causing harm to candidates from other parties that are not involved in the conspiracy or political maneuvering. In this light, gubernatorial candidates from the New Progressive Party (Jenniffer González Colón), the Popular Democratic Party (Jesús Manuel Ortiz González), and Proyecto Dignidad (Javier Jiménez Pérez) are negatively impacted by the PIP and MVC collusion to support Dalmau Ramírez, as well as at other levels.
Igartúa maintains that the Alliance infringes upon his rights, as well as those of other U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico, to equal protection of the law and due process by unlawfully benefiting its candidates with schemes that other preferred candidates do not employ, he stated.
Neither MVC, the State Elections Commission, nor the electoral comptroller provided a response to requests for comments.
