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Absentees are scarce for Mexico's '06 vote

By Leslie Berestein and Norma de la Vega
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
November 3, 2005

After winning a hard-fought battle for the right to vote abroad, very few Mexican immigrants in the United States or elsewhere have turned in applications for an absentee ballot for Mexico's 2006 presidential election.

Since Oct. 1, Mexican citizens with valid voter credentials have been able to pick up the required forms at Mexican embassies and consular offices around the world. The forms are also available online.

Yet only 773 completed applications were been mailed to Mexico's Federal Elections Institute in Mexico City during October by prospective voters living abroad, the institute reported this week. Of those, 564 were from Mexican voters living in the United States.

It is a paltry turnout, considering there are about 4 million Mexicans in the United States believed to be eligible to vote in Mexico. Observers have blamed a combination of voter apathy, paperwork challenges and almost no publicity in the United States, with even many of those who are willing and able to vote in the dark about what they need to do.

In San Diego, the Mexican consulate received about 20,000 applications from the electoral institute, but prospective voters in the San Diego area so far have picked up about 1,000 of them. While the election is not until July, the applications must be mailed in by Jan. 15.

"This is the first time this is being done, so I think it's premature to draw conclusions," said Luis Cabrera Cuarón, the Mexican consul general in San Diego, but then added, "It's important that people don't wait until the last minute."

For now, Mexican officials are trying to tackle publicity and access problems. During a visit to San Diego on Monday, electoral institute representative Primitivo Rodriguez said the institute has budgeted money to produce promotional spots that would be aired on U.S. Spanish-language media.

"The (electoral institute) came to realize that without publicity, the vote was greatly at risk," Rodriguez said, adding that this is a first for the institute, which he said has never spent money on get-out-the-vote publicity in Mexico or the United States.

Rodriguez said he hoped U.S. television and radio outlets would air the spots free as a public service.

He also said voters who lack valid credentials will be able to obtain them at 15 registration locations set up in Mexican border cities, including two sites in Tijuana.

Even so, there are obstacles to absentee turnout that aren't so easily overcome.

"It's really not a surprise to me that the number of takers is so low, at least at this point," said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego. "We know that Mexican migrants are staying longer in the U.S. The longer they stay, the more likely it is that they are going to be more attentive to the U.S. political system, rather than the Mexican one."

The current presidential campaign also lacks the high stakes that drew some voters all the way from Los Angeles to Tijuana to vote in 2000, when a win by Vicente Fox of PAN, the National Action Party, promised to break more than 70 years of political rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

"There was a genuine uncertainty about the outcome in 2000," Cornelius said. "(Now), regardless of who wins, they are not going to be overturning the political system the way that Fox did."

Presidential candidates also are prohibited from campaigning abroad, an obstacle to generating voter support outside Mexico.

Another complication is that applying for an absentee ballot is more onerous than it sounds. Those lacking transportation to Mexican government offices, Internet access, or both are at a disadvantage.

To try to remedy this, Rodriguez announced Monday that community organizations and some businesses will be able to pick up applications to distribute from Mexican consulates, provided they obtain permission from the electoral institute.

The completed forms must be sent by certified mail to Mexico City, making cost another disincentive.

Many potential voters don't yet know they can apply for an absentee ballot. Last week, the forms gathered dust on a table in the consulate lobby, with few visitors asking about them.

One of these was Yolanda Arenas, 34, a native of the state of Queretaro. Arenas said she had a valid voter credential but didn't know applications to request an absentee ballot were available. She had seen the forms in the consulate but said no one had told her what they were for, and that she was hesitant to ask."

"There hasn't been much information, has there?" Arenas said.

Meanwhile, there are those who would like to vote but can't.

"We were given the right to vote, but we weren't given the ability to get a credential," said Pedro Mendez, 41, from the state of Puebla.

Millions of Mexican immigrants living abroad lack valid voter credentials, which they need to vote. The credentialing sites in border cities will be useful only to those who live nearby and can cross legally.

In Los Angeles, where immigrant organizations spent years lobbying the Mexican government for the right of expatriates to vote, community leaders are infuriated by the situation.

"What is happening is ridiculous," said Felipe Aguirre of Comite Pro-Uno, an organization based in the Los Angeles suburb of Maywood that was instrumental in lobbying for absentee voting rights.

Aguirre complained about the lack of publicity. He said he fears that if there is a disastrously low turnout of absentee voters, the immigrants themselves ultimately will be faulted for it.

Mexicans living abroad initially won the right to vote in 1996, when the Mexican constitution was amended. No mechanisms were put in place for this to happen until recently.

"If the turnout is extremely low, those who opposed granting the vote are going to use this as ammunition," Cornelius said. "They will use that as evidence that this is just a bad idea in the first place, and that no more money should be invested in it."