EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexico’s upcoming presidential and federal election is drawing interest even from those who left the homeland years ago.
A total of 226,661 Mexican citizens living abroad registered to vote in the June 2 federal election via electronic vote, mail ballot or in person at selected consulates. That’s a 24.63% increase over the 181,873 that registered for the 2018 presidential election, the National Electoral Institute (INE) said in a statement Monday.
Most of the out-of-country voters registering this time live in the United States (156,856), are over 42 years old (130,139) and more than one in three migrated from the Mexico City-Mexico State area or from Jalisco, INE reported.
More than 10.7 million people born in Mexico lived in the United States as of 2021, the Pew Research Center reported last August.
Registration, which was originally scheduled to end on Feb. 20, concluded last Sunday. Those five extra days drew an additional 35,000 voters who would otherwise have been excluded by the deadline, INE said. They will be eligible to vote for a new president, one of 128 new senators, 500 congressional deputies and, depending on their last state or residency, six governors’ races.
“We have to recognize we have a huge diaspora in the U.S., so we need to recognize them as any other citizen in Mexico and they should be involved in everything related to our country,” Mexican Consul General in El Paso Mauricio Ibarra Ponce de Leon told KTSM earlier this month.
With the totals just released, it’s too early to gauge what’s behind this year’s surge. The consulates and umbrella groups like the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME) heavily promoted registration. And there’s the added draw of what some analysts call a “99.9% probability” that Mexico will elect its first female president this year, which would be a historic watermark for that country.
Claudia Sheinbaum and Xochitl Galvez each represent a major three-party coalition. The seventh party, Movimiento Ciudadano, switched standard-bearers late and its candidate is Jorge Alvarez.
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