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 News from Around the Americas | February 2006 
Mexicans Abroad may have been Caught Unprepared
 USNewswire
| | The final tally of absentee voter applications is 54,780 of an estimated 4.2 million Mexicans living outside of the country. |
Washington - Mexicans living in the United States lacked documents and information to register to vote in their native country and knew little about its presidential election this year, a study released Wednesday shows.
The findings of the Pew Hispanic Center, which surveyed 987 Mexican-born adults in telephone interviews, appeared to confirm complaints by many groups in the United States and migrants of a cumbersome process for applying for absentee ballots.
"What we see from the survey is people understood they had the right to vote, they just didn´t know how to go about it," said Roberto Suro, director of the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center.
Mexicans vote July 2 to replace President Vicente Fox, whose election in 2000 ended 71 years of one-party rule. He is prohibited by law from seeking re-election. Mexico´s Congress voted in June to allow mail-in ballots from abroad.
An estimated 9.7 million people born in Mexico live in the United States, according to the U.S. Census. The Pew study found that of those, about 31 percent, or 3 million, have valid Mexican voting credentials needed to get an application.
About three-fourths of Mexicans in the United States knew they were able to vote in the elections, but about a third knew the deadline to register had passed, the study said.
The Federal Election Institute (IFE) received 54,780 ballot applications from Mexicans abroad with about 89 percent coming from the United States.
About 45 percent of all Mexicans in the United States and 53 percent of those eligible to vote knew the presidential elections would take place this year. But only 19 percent of all Mexicans in the United States and 24 percent of eligible voters knew the correct year and month.
Survey respondents were contacted through random dialing in states where concentrations of Mexicans is heavy. In areas where the population is less heavy, respondents were contacted with the aid of lists of individuals with Spanish surnames and random dialing.
The survey was conducted by International Communications Research of Media between Jan. 16 and Feb. 6. About 96 percent of the interviews were done in Spanish.
Final Absentee Ballot Numbers Released
Wire services
The final tally of absentee voter applications is 54,780 of an estimated 4.2 million Mexicans living outside of the country.
Last week, officials from the Federal Elections Institute (IFE) had announced they had received 56,749 applications. However, in a press conference Wednesday they presented the new tally, saying last week´s figures had included correspondence from Mexicans living abroad unrelated to absentee voting.
However, of the 54,780 applications, only 40,627 were given IFE´s stamp of approval. Sixty-four applications are still being reviewed. The number of potential voters from abroad represents 0.057 percent of all registered voters, who number 72 million.
In response to criticisms, the president of IFE´s committee on Mexicans voting from abroad, Rodrigo Morales, denied that the low percentage of applications demonstrates an inherent failure of the program. |
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