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This story ran on nwitimes.com on Friday, June 9, 2006 12:33 AM CDT

Not exercising the right to vote

BY KATHERINE BOYLE AND REBECCA SCHILLING
Medill News Service
CHICAGO | Pilsen resident Raul Ross has been working to get Mexican citizens in the United States the right to vote in Mexico's elections since the 1980s.

Ross moved to Pilsen from Veracruz, Mexico in 1986. After several disappointing elections, this year Ross was finally able to cast an absentee ballot, thanks to legislation passed in Mexico in 2005.

"(Voting) is saying we haven't broken with our country," said Ross, whose parents, two brothers and sister still live in Mexico. "People here still support not only (their families in Mexico) but towns, public works (and) streets."

But many other Mexican citizens in Chicago don't seem to share Ross' interest in the election.

Although the July 2 presidential election is the first in which citizens abroad will be able to vote, only 4,000 absentee ballots have been cast from the Chicago area -- and the deadline for doing so was Jan. 15.

About 1.5 million Mexican citizens live in the Chicago area, said Cesar Romero, spokesman for the Mexican Consulate. That means less than 0.3 percent of these Mexican citizens sent in absentee ballots.

The Washington, D.C.-based Pew Hispanic Center's survey found that although many Mexicans have strong ties to their home country, they don't have strong opinions on Mexican political institutions. For the study, the center questioned 987 Mexican-born adults living in the United States.

"People's primary concern is where they are living," said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexican Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. "There seems to be more interest in Mexican migrants in the United States than in Mexican politics," Selee said.