Results slow in Puerto Rico as voters face long lines

Voters in Puerto Rico reportedly faced lines of more than two hours to vote Sunday in the Democratic presidential primary.

According to an MSNBC reporter, some voters who were waiting in San Juan decided to leave rather than face the long lines.

The wait to vote in Puerto Rico’s presidential primary is more than 1HR some places — ppl giving up where I am in Condado (San Juan).

— tonydokoupil (@tonydokoupil) June 5, 2016

UPDATE: The wait to vote in Puerto Rico’s presidential primary is more than 2.5 hrs some places — ppl giving up in San Juan.

— tonydokoupil (@tonydokoupil) June 5, 2016

{mosads}The commonwealth initially had 1,510 polling locations. But it announced last month that the number of polling locations would be cut to 455 for the Sunday primary.

Robert Prats, president of the Democratic Party on the island, said the 455 locations are four times more than the number of polling locations open in the Republican primary in March.

Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders were up in arms over the cuts, with supporters tweeting about the change. A “Sanders for President” reddit page also called the reduction “about as bad as Arizona,” and dozens of Sanders supporters voiced concerns about the cuts on the page.

But the local party told MSNBC that the Sanders campaign had requested fewer stations. 

Dem Party of PR tells @MSNBC that the Sanders campaign is the one that requested a cut in number of polling stations today.

— tonydokoupil (@tonydokoupil) June 5, 2016

Odd reporting on MSNBC: Sanders requested lower number of poll places in Puerto Rico, bc they had insufficient volunteers to monitor count

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) June 6, 2016

The Puerto Rico primary has 60 delegates at stake. A large win for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton could clinch the party’s nomination for her.

Some ballots weren’t even removed from the polling places until after 6 p.m., according to MSNBC.

Loading up the ballots in San Juan. pic.twitter.com/sFJIZi472N

— tonydokoupil (@tonydokoupil) June 5, 2016

To be clear the ballot pics I just tweeted were LOCAL. The presidential ballots are STILL being hand counted. This could be a long nite.

— tonydokoupil (@tonydokoupil) June 5, 2016

Updated 8:19 p.m.