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A bartender in San Juan, Puerto Rico, pours rum into a glass. Alcohol sales are banned on election days on the island, a rule the territory's Republican party would like changed for the upcoming presidential primaries. | AP Photo Puerto Rico GOP: Let voters buy booze on election day

Puerto Rico’s Republican Party is calling for the island’s government to allow alcohol sales during Sunday’s GOP presidential primary there, despite dry laws that usually ban those sales on election days.

Puerto Rico Republican Party Chairwoman Jennifer González Colón said in a news release issued Friday that the island’s dry laws shouldn’t be enforced during the primary, since alcohol sales won’t interfere with the voting process or the distribution of electoral materials.

Reached at the island’s party headquarters, Kevin Romero, chairman of the GOP’s youth committee, said, “We believe that the Republican Primary on Sunday is exempted from the dry law due to it being a federal election.”

Moreover, González Colón said, the GOP doesn’t want “to interfere with economic development in such a fragile moment” — a reference to the island’s fiscal crisis — by having alcohol sales banned so Republicans can have their say in the presidential nominating process.

The dry law isn’t in effect throughout the island — there are exemptions for tourist hotels and on cruise ships.

There’s been little attention to the Puerto Rico primary — though the territory will award 23 GOP delegates, the same number as Maine, which votes on Saturday. Most of the island’s GOP establishment has lined up behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and Rubio will be making a last-minute visit to Levittown, Puerto Rico, on Saturday night.

Bans on alcohol used to be fairly common in the U.S., but a number of states have scrapped those laws in recent years. The final bans on buying alcohol on election days in the 50 states — in Kentucky and South Carolina — were repealed in 2014.

Gabriel Debenedetti contributed to this report.