EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexicans living abroad voted in record numbers in last Sunday’s presidential election. And, like their brethren in the homeland, they also favored Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.
The latest results posted of ballots cast from outside of Mexico in the National Elections Institute website show Sheinbaum edged Xochitl Galvez of the PAN-PRI-PRD coalition by just under 5,000 votes. The 184,326 ballots counted so far exceed the 98,470 cast in the 2018 presidential contest that saw Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador elected.
Most votes (122,497) came via a secure internet server. A total of 39,083 ballots were sent through the mail and 22,243 voted in person at 23 Mexican consulates in the United States, Canada and Europe.
Some of the mail-in votes apparently are still being counted, as Interior Secretary Luisa Maria Alcalde this week said 197,203 of the 258,461 voters residing abroad had cast ballots. Speaking at Lopez Obrador’s daily news conference broadcast on YouTube, Alcalde said that’s a 76 percent voter participation rate.
Mexican activists in the United States said the political engagement shows U.S. residents born in Mexico still care a lot about what happens in their homeland. They also will increasingly demand more attention, services, and protection from Lopez Obrador in his remaining four months in office and from Sheinbaum the next six years after that.
“We are sending a very strong message to Mexico. The (political) parties in Mexico and the Mexican government must pay more attention on Mexicans over here,” Dallas activist Carlos Quintanilla said during a live broadcast on election day. “We are sending a very strong message that Mexicans in the United States have power.”
They also have economic power. Mexicans living abroad last year sent a record $63 billion in remittances to relatives.
Immigrants from Mexico in the United States rely on their consulate for identity documents, legal referrals when facing deportation or suing employers that steal their wages, and information on free or low-cost health, education and banking services.
The activists expect Sheinbaum to keep pushing the U.S. government for an immigration reform that would afford an estimated 5 million undocumented Mexican citizens who’ve been living in the United States for five years or more, according to Lopez Obrador’s estimates.
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