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Expatriate Mexicans pour over border to vote

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Jul 2, 4:19 PM (ET)

By Magdiel Hernandez

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) - Thousands of expatriate Mexicans streamed south of the U.S. border on Sunday to vote in their homeland in a tight race with high stakes for crime-weary border residents.

A large stream of U.S.-based Mexicans trekked on foot and piled into cars to vote in a string of gritty border towns from Tijuana in the west to Nuevo Laredo below Texas.

Electoral authorities were taken by surprise at the number of expatriates who showed up.

"It's a very close-fought race ... and if we don't vote, we can't hope to decide the outcome," said Luis Tovar, 28, a shipping agent who drove from San Antonio, Texas, to vote in Nuevo Laredo, just over the Rio Grande.

Many waited for hours in the sweltering heat to cast their ballots in a fight between leftist front runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative rival Felipe Calderon. The leftist had a lead of just two points in opinion polls after a campaign fought over job creation, the economy and graft.

Only 40,000 of an estimated 6 million to 7 million Mexicans of voting age in the United States registered to vote by mail mostly because the paperwork was difficult.

In Nuevo Laredo, around 1,000 people lined up to cast their ballots at two voting stations specially set up accommodate expatriates.

In Tijuana, south of San Diego, authorities were swamped by more than 1,000 voters who waited for more than four hours at polling centers across the city, many of them pledging support for Lopez Obrador.

"I'm prepared to wait in line for 10 hours if I have to," said Enedina Trujillo, 32, a Wal-Mart cashier from San Diego as she prepared to vote for the leftist.

"(We need) to get these bandits out of power," she said, referring to Calderon's ruling National Action Party.

While the candidates have campaigned on economic growth and corruption, expatriates said they were more concerned about rampant drug crime on the border and migrant welfare.

"Anywhere you go on the border... there's violence, insecurity and robberies, and it's a big challenge for whoever gets to run the country," said well-known singer Alicia Villarreal, from Odessa, Texas as she waited to vote in Nuevo Laredo.

Hundreds of people have been shot, stabbed and beaten to death on the Mexican side of the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border since January in a turf war between cartels battling for control of the drug trade to the United States.

Handyman Maurileo Salcido, 40, crossed to Tijuana from San Diego, California, to vote in an election in which emigration to the United States has been a campaign issue.

"I'm going to vote for Lopez Obrador. Let's see if he can deliver the job opportunities (at home) so that Mexicans don't have to leave the country," he said.

(Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Tijuana)