"We don't know exactly how much is in there," Roberto Iván Aponte, the electoral commissioner of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, said, according to the Herald. The Absentee and Early Vote Administrative Board is now in possession of the ballots, he said.
The Puerto Rico State Elections Commission said the problem happened because of the higher number of voters casting their ballots by mail - more than 227,000.
"If it had been a smaller amount, it would have been carried out without any problem, because on Election Day there was no problem. The big problem is how this early voting issue was handled."Nicolás Gautier, the electoral commissioner of the Popular Democratic Party, said, "I'm not leaving here until I fix this mess that just happened so it doesn't happen again in the future."
Comment: Puerto Ricans are voting on statehood. However, this election is one more example of how voting regulations are not met with adherence to protocol, and outcomes are only as true as the mechanisms and diligence applied.