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Expatriate Voter Registration Falling Flat
Frontera NorteSur, November 18, 2005

Early this year, Mexican congressmen approved legislation that charged the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) with implementing a system to permit the casting of absentee votes by Mexicans residing in the United States and other countries. With more than 4 million Mexicans deemed eligible to participate as absentee voters, optimistic predictions held that immigrants could become a crucial swing vote in the 2006 race. Now, with less than two months to go before absentee voter registration closes, early projections of the size of the Mexican expatriate vote are falling far short of expectations.

By the first half of November, only 1,073 registration application forms from the United States and other countries had trickled into the IFE. About 20 percent of the early registration forms were returned back to the senders because the applications weren't sent by certified mail as required by Mexican law. Pilar Alvarez, an IFE official who recently toured the United States promoting the migrant vote, said about 2.5 million registration forms have been prepared for expatriate Mexicans. Declining to comment on the potential degree of absentee participation, Alvarez said it all depended on 'the will of the voters.'

Rodolfo Rubio, a researcher with the College of the Northern Border in Ciudad Juarez, predicted that if current trends continue less than 10 percent of eligible expatriate voters will be registered to cast their ballots for the July 2006 election. Analysts attribute a number of different factors to the disappointing number of registrations returned so far.

Cost, lack of information, distrust of government, and political burn-out with the standing parties are all variously cited as reasons for the low registration roll until now. In what constitutes a sort of poll tax on migrants, absentee voters are being asked to use certified mail to send in their registration applications so they can receive a mailed ballot during the April 15 to May 20 time frame. After voting, the ballot will have to be sent back to Mexico by July 1, again by certified mail. Potential voters can also register via computer, a gadget still not owned by many on the other side of the digital divide. Absentee voters must also provide a copy of their Mexican voter identification card, a document not all people have.

'Before, you could say that they paid us to vote. Now, everyone that wants to register to vote has to pay between $8 and $10 dollars for each certified package sent to Mexico,' said Jorge Arturo Garcia, the president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in California. 'Besides that, they are asking people to vote blind, because the candidates are unknown and nobody knows their platform.'

In a move that has upset political partisans, the IFE has prohibited Mexican candidates from direct campaigning abroad, and barred political parties from spending campaign funds in foreign countries. An IFE-promised media blitz in the United States and other countries urging Mexican residents to participate in the election back home has not taken off as widely as expected. Ads are spotty, and some immigrant advocacy organizations in the US still have not received promotional literature or procedural information.

Further complicating matters, the federal Chamber of Deputies just slashed the IFE's 2006 budget, even though IFE officials previously said they needed an extra $8 million dollars on top of the approximately $118 million dollars already budgeted for the absentee voting process. Most of the budget will pay for the costly mail-in, mail-out process. In all fairness to the IFE, it should be mentioned that this year's registration is the first time the Mexican government has administered a vote from abroad. Nonetheless, the clock is ticking.

Although the current regulations stipulate that absentee voters have until January 15 to register, the looming holiday season in both the United States and Mexico will almost certainly cut a large chunk of the real time left to register. Traditionally, official business in Mexico comes to a crawl between about December 15 and January 7, the day after the Three King's Holiday, as family activities, travel and celebration take precedence over everything else.

As the holiday season dawned near, the IFE announced it would promote voter registration in the heavily-crossed border corridors of Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros. However, it's unclear how many people will take off time in the middle of their busy travel and shopping activities to register to vote.

Overall, there's currently a mixed feeling among Mexican immigrants in the US about participating in the 2006 election, according to leaders of immigrant advocacy organizations in New Mexico and Texas contacted by Frontera NorteSur.

Mary Luchini, the director of rural development for the Las Cruces, NM-based Advocates for Children and Families, said some immigrants have expressed more of an interest than others in voting. 'They really feel like they want a voice,' Luchini said. 'Even though they're here, they feel like they're still part of Mexico. They're happy about.'

Carlos Coral, the director of the Office of Catholic Social Ministry for the Diocese of Las Cruces, sounded a similar note. Coral said some people he's talked to recently have brought up the elections, but other topics like the pay-out of monies from the old Bracero Program are hotter issues at the moment. 'That's the one people are asking about right now,' Coral said.

Some immigrant advocates blame popular indignation at Mexico's political status quo for the lack of enthusiasm shown so far in the electoral process. Daniel Solis, the director of the Alliance for Community Development, a group which works in the low-income colonias of El Paso County's Lower Valley, said he strongly supported the right of all Mexicans to vote but criticized what he said were a lack of real alternatives available to voters.

Criticizing Mexico's three major political parties, Solis contended that NAFTA-fanned changes from Chiapas to Ciudad Juarez are worsening living conditions for the indigenous, campesino and worker sectors. Many people, Solis added, are instead losing hope of better prospects at home and putting stock in their future as new immigrants.

'With the whole democratization process in Mexico, there has to be some results if they want folks to participate,' Solis said. 'I see it as a stagnant process. Everyone calls it a new democracy, but the poor are still being left behind.' Nonetheless, Solis said he still favored involvement in the election. 'It's a priority and people have to get involved, but there are no options with the political parties right now,' he said. 'But you can't give up and throw up your hands.

What is the other option?'

Ultimately, Mexican immigrants who live close to border cities and want to vote in next year's election might wind up playing a bigger role than their compatriots residing in the US interior, who have to dig into their pockets to vote and make sure forms and ballots are sent in by deadlines way before election day. As in previous elections, the IFE will install special polling stations on election day in Ciudad Juarez and other border cities for people away from home.

Additional sources: El Universal, November 1, 9 and 15, 2005. Articles by Jorge Octavo Ochoa, Fidel Samaniego and Arturo Zarate. El Diario de Juarez/El Diario de El Paso, November 6, 9, 10, 15, 2005. Articles by Lorena Figueroa, Patricia Giovine and press agencies. KLUZ (Albuquerque) November El Paso Times, November 9 and 14, 2005. Articles by Louie Gilot. Univision, November 11, 2005. Proceso/Apro, October 19 and November 4, 2005. Articles by Jenaro Villamil and Pedro Matias.