Yes and Yes.  Yes, a constitutional amendment surely could give U.S. citizens residing in Puerto Rico the presidential vote, much like the 23rd did for DC.  Yes, a statute, creating electors for territorial voters could be passed.  Article II only instructs on electors in the states.  As we had just fought a war against colonialism none of the founders contemplated a U.S. colony and thus no provision was made for so-called "unincorporated territories" to have electors.  The other territories (Northwest Territory) were all on a statehood path, Puerto Rico never has been.  The citizenship of Puerto Ricans was extended by statute in 1917.  Statutes could also extend the suffrage to those citizens.

Michael Richardson

Amicus in Igartua v. United States

From:  "Jessica Sutliff" <jessica.sutliff@gmail.com>
To:  election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject:  Re: Electionlawblog 3/21/06--Puerto Rico
Date:  Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:12:11 -0500

District of Columbia residents obtained the right to vote for President and Vice President due to the 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

On 3/22/06, Tom Round <tround@scu.edu.au> wrote:

Would legislation be enough to give PR what it seeks? Wouldn't it take a

const amendment? Excuse my ignorance but I'm an outsider on this... Tom

At 00:44 23/03/2006, Lloyd Mayer wrote:

I passed this question on to Doug Cassel, the Director of our Center for Civil and Human Rights here at Notre Dame and an expert on international human rights issues.  His view is that the Puerto Ricans are likely to get a favorable ruling at the OAS, probably through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (on which another member of our faculty, Paolo Carozza, sits, but he would have to recuse himself from this matter as it relates to the United States),  Our Supreme Court does not enforce such rulings, however, nor does our Executive Branch consider such rulings to be binding on the United States, which means the Puerto Ricans will probably instead have to take the ruling to Congress to try to have it enforced through legislation.