Low Registration for Mexican Absentee Vote

Only 16,000 of the estimated 11 million Mexicans living in the United States have registered to vote in an upcoming presidential election on July 2, in which ballots from outside Mexico will be counted for the first time. The number of known registrations will likely increase over the next month, as forms mailed by a January 15 deadline arrive in Mexico, but it is still likely to be far short of the 1 million forms that were distributed internationally.

Voter registration in Mexico is more complicated than in the United States. Mexican citizens are required to show a voter card, which many immigrants do not have, Mexican government officials said. Immigrants who lack the proper credentials must return to Mexico to apply for them, a trip illegal immigrants are unlikely to make. To make matters more cumbersome, two weeks later, the registrants must go back again to obtain the card itself.

The legislation allowing absentee balloting was passed in June after years of effort by expatriates, who are estimated to make up as much as 10 percent of the total Mexican population. "The process that was devised for casting a ballot was simply too cumbersome, too time-consuming, and involved dealing with too many government agencies to make it a usable process," said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the UC-San Diego.

                                 

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