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 News from Around the Americas | August 2005 
Activists Hope to Boost Participation in 2006
 Wire Services
Activists were discussing ways Friday to encourage millions of Mexicans living abroad to cast the country's first absentee ballots during next summer's presidential elections.
The directors of migrants groups in California, Texas, Illinois and Iowa planned to use 3,000 activists to promote the expatriate vote across the United States, said Primitivo Rodríguez, coordinator of the Coalition for the Political Rights of Mexicans Abroad.
One of the first steps will be putting together lists of registered voters from each Mexican state who live outside of the country because the ballots they cast will go toward the vote totals of their home states, he said.
In June, Mexico passed a law that allows registered Mexican voters to cast ballots in the July 2, 2006, presidential elections while living abroad. Before, migrants had to return to their native Mexico in order to participate in elections, effectively barring many from taking part.
After a series of meetings Friday, activists planned to speak with officials from Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute on Saturday, discussing campaigns to educate Mexicans abroad about the new voting-bymail law.
They also plan to rely on Mexican consulates across the United States to provide similar information in coming months, though it is illegal for government officials to openly promote the vote.
An estimated 11 million Mexicans live outside this country, the overwhelming majority in the United States. Only about 4 million of those are thought to have the valid registration cards necessary to vote by absentee ballot, however.
Rodríguez said studies have shown that only about 5 percent of voters living abroad cast absentee ballots when they are eligible to participate in their home country's elections. Activists hope at least 400,000 Mexican expatriates about 10 percent of those registered vote next summer, however.
Rodríguez said another important part of the campaign will be urging those who do not have voter registration cards to call family members in Mexico and endorse candidates thus indirectly participating in the election.
"This is a process for everybody," Rodriguez said. "We want every Mexican outside Mexico to have a political voice, even if you don't have a voting credential." At an event Friday celebrating the new absentee ballot law, Patricia Hamm, a Mexican-born assistant professor of political science at Iowa State University, called the chance to vote from outside Mexico "a dream come true." "This is a tangible demonstration that the government, Congress, the political parties not only in Mexico but also in the United States recognize (expatriates) as transnational political actors," said Hamm. She has lived outside her homeland for 26 years.
Which political party in Mexico will most benefit from the absentee ballots is unclear. As many as 14 percent of the electorate live abroad, but analysts say low voter turnout will likely undermine the influence expatriates might otherwise have on the election.
Hamm said she thought more Mexicans overseas would vote than expected, however.
"Despite what many analysts, activists and academics in the United States and Mexico have predicted, we are a mature political actor now," she said. |
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