Status plebiscite, November 14, 1993

On November 14, 1993, the island voted again on status. Free Associated State, statehood, and independence were the three options. The Free Associated State won, narrowly. The CEE tally summary compiled at electionspuertorico.org gives the Free Associated State 826,326 votes (48.6 percent), statehood 788,296 (46.3 percent), and independence 75,620 (4.4 percent), with turnout of 73.5 percent. This build did not open a certified CEE PDF; those compiled public totals are the figures used here.

The gap between the Free Associated State and statehood had collapsed since 1967. Independence grew from a remainder to a small but visible quarter of a tenth. The definitions on the ballot matter. The 1993 Free Associated State option was not a blank ELA label; it came with claims of autonomy and benefits that Congress had never approved. That is why the vote is a political document as well as a tally. CRS later treated the definition fights as part of the status problem.

A narrow majority is still a majority of the votes cast for the listed options. It is not a mandate for Congress to rewrite Foraker's grandchildren. After 1993, island politicians asked Washington to implement the Free Associated State definition or say what it would offer. Washington did not implement that definition. The next plebiscite, in 1998, will show what happens when "none of the above" is on the paper.

Estadidad, statehood. Independencia, independence. ELA, or estado libre asociado, was the Free Associated State column. Print the Spanish once so that a ballot image makes sense, then keep the counts. This diary is not a campaign. It is a sequence of numbered votes.

Honesty: November 14, 1993. Free Associated State first, statehood close, independence near 4.4 percent as ordinarily published. No invented decimal. There are turnout disputes in the literature; this lesson does not invent a turnout percentage that has not been fixed. The finding is the order of finish and the narrow gap. The comfortable Free Associated State of 1967 is gone. 1998 will not restore it.

The numbered finding stays with the public law, the rubric, or the tally. This lesson invents no percentage, no count of people, and no date that the sources on this page do not support. The English terms are glossed in the text so that the statute can be read without a manifesto.

Sources: Elecciones en Puerto Rico, resumen de votos del plebiscito de 1993; CRS R44721, antecedentes del estatus político. Freeze 2026-08-22.