http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/14947117.htm

Posted on Sun, Jul. 02, 2006


Where have all the Mexican voters gone?

By MICHAEL D. KERLIN
Special to the Star-Telegram

This year has witnessed Mexican immigrants waving their home-country flags in rallies across the United States to assert their right to feel welcome on both sides of the border. During this year's World Cup, Mexican immigrants filled bars and restaurants around the United States to cheer their native country's national soccer team. Binational pride is swelling, to say the least.

In this same year, Mexico has given its emigrants a chance to live out that pride by voting in today's election for the next Mexican president. And yet only 36,000 of the 11.6 million Mexican citizens estimated to be living in the United States have even registered to take advantage of their new opportunity.

What has caused this disconnect between homeland pride and democratic participation?

First come life's distractions. Most businesses that cater to Mexican immigrants do their briskest business on Sundays. That's because many of their customers work long hours and six-day weeks so that they can support their families back home. In fact, roughly $20 billion in remittances flowed from the United States to Mexico last year. New phone cards allow Mexican immigrants to call home for as little as 5 cents per minute. So lots of time is also spent maintaining relationships with spouses, children and parents over the phone.

This all leaves little time to worry about the intricacies of absentee voting.

Such a busy schedule becomes even more of a roadblock when the potential voter feels powerless to change things back home. I caught up with a group of Mexican immigrants in Pennsylvania. Most wished not to be identified, but they responded to my questions about the election.

"They're all crooks. Every Mexican president steals from the country," one said.

"They never enforce the labor laws that would make it easier for us to work back home, anyway," another told me.

These skeptics are right to question democracy and institutions in Mexico. For 71 years, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ruled nearly uncontested, and its officials were suspected of widespread corruption and even ties to drug trafficking. But the last PRI president, Ernesto Zedillo, prosecuted corrupt officials from his own party and ushered in the multiparty democracy that Mexico enjoys today. Current President Vicente Fox, of the National Action Party (PAN), has continued the trend -- corruption is down, and elections are more transparent than ever.

The very institution responsible for Mexico's transparent elections has taken the lead in registering emigrants to vote. For all its good work on clean elections, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), an independent, nonpartisan organization, has struggled in its efforts with Mexicans abroad.

In the fall of 2005, IFE made registration applications available at Mexican embassies and consulates, as well as online and at 7,000 other physical locations in the United States and other countries. Mexican law, however, banned candidates from campaigning outside Mexico. So no candidates legally could invest in the stump speeches and TV and radio ads that often trigger voter registrations.

In late April, IFE sent registered absentee voters elaborate packets with instructional CD-ROMs, illustrated voting guides and ballots. They even devised a creative slogan: "Con mi voto, MéXico está completo" -- "With my vote, MeXico is complete" -- and brightened the "X" in pink to evoke clearly the image of a vote being cast.

As of June 21, 25,000 of those registered in the United States had voted -- about 70 percent. Even more votes should have arrived before Saturday's deadline, so the problem lies not in the voting but in the publicity and ease of registration.

In the next election, IFE should invest more in voter registration advertising and less in the packets that it sends to those already registered. The Mexican Legislature should also free candidates to campaign abroad, so campaign trail fervor can drive registration.

Mexico does deserve some patience. "I don't think it's too bad for the first time around," a U.S.-based Mexican deputy consul told me. Once Mexicans abroad start voting in greater numbers, though, Mexican presidents will work harder to shed their reputation for corruption and to ease the challenges of immigrant life abroad.

If such momentum can build, this year's collection of voters can snowball by the next election. When I spoke with Efren Álvarez, a Mexican immigrant waiting outside the Mexican consulate in Washington, D.C., on June 1, he couldn't remember if the elections were happening June 2 or July 2. In 2012, when Mexico elects its next president, I hope to find Álvarez with a ballot in his hand.


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Michael D. Kerlin is a management consultant in Washington and a graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Michael D. Kerlin has written on immigration and international affairs for several publications here and abroad, including The Christian Science Monitor and the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy.