The vote count in Puerto Rico, updated
points to a win by the PNP (Partido Nuevo Progresista's) candidate, former governor Pedro Rosselló, or does it? As this NYT article points out,

Puerto Rican election law, which requires an "escrutinio," or review of vote summaries from each precinct, before an official recount of the roughly two million paper ballots cast on Nov. 2. Hundreds of officials from the island's election commission and its three major parties are submerged in that task . . . The officials are also checking the validity of about 30,000 ballots that did not make the initial count, a slow process that sometimes involves determining voter intent

All of this has to be done before there is a recount. Faced with the possibility of months-long "escrutinios," the U.S. District Court and the Puerto Rico Supreme Court have now spoken: Recount Ordered in Puerto Rico Election

Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, the Partido Popular candidate, who was in the lead last week when the NYT article was published, has gone on the record saying that the current paper ballot system, "is foolproof against fraud because you have the evidence right there," he said. "Thank God for paper ballots." I guess he never heard of olden-day Chicago.

The Partido Independentista, according to the NYT article has lost its status as an official party by getting only 2.73% of the total vote.

There are no hanging chads, but there are "mixed votes", "in which voters marked the symbol for the Independence Party and the space next to the names of Acevedo Vila and Roberto Prats, the Popular Democratic candidate for Puerto Rico's nonvoting delegate to the U.S. Congress." I have no idea how it's done(*), but apparently "there could be as many as 20,000" of those.

If you're not confused by now, I'd appreciate if you could explain all this.

(*) It would be the equivalent of voting for the Green party while at the same time voting for Kerry, for example.

Update here