 |
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | July 2006 
Expats Angry at Mexico for Making it Hard to Vote
 Miguel Perez - NorthJersey.com
| | Their anger is fueled by what became a very close election. With the two top contenders finishing only 243,934 votes apart, Mexican-Americans had the numbers to swing the vote and elect the next president of Mexico. |
Although Miguel Torres has been in North Jersey for more than 20 years, he went back home to Mexico for a voter registration card. He wanted to be ready for the historic day when he could participate in a Mexican election from the United States.
When Mexicans were finally given the right to vote from abroad, Torres expected to proudly do his civic duty. He sent all the appropriate papers in applying for an absentee ballot from Mexico for the July 2 presidential election.
He's still waiting for his ballot.
Election day passed without the participation of Torres and the overwhelming majority of Mexican-Americans, some of whom are upset about the obstacles that prevented them from voting.
Their anger is fueled by what became a very close election. With the two top contenders finishing only 243,934 votes apart - an outcome now being contested in court - Mexican-Americans had the numbers to swing the vote and elect the next president of Mexico.
Although conservative Felipe Calderon was declared the winner by less than 1 percentage point, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is alleging widespread fraud. He has asked Mexico's top electoral court to manually recount the nearly 41 million ballots cast. The court has until Sept. 6 to declare a winner.
Of several million Mexican-Americans who could have voted, only 28,335 cast ballots from the United States.
"They tell you [that] you have the right to vote and then they make it nearly impossible," said Torres, owner of El Abuelito, a Paterson cheese factory. "They played all kinds of games to discourage people from voting from here."
Unlike expatriates of other countries who could vote at consulates, Mexicans had to do it by certified mail, months in advance. Those who didn't have a voter registration card had to go to Mexico to get one. That automatically excluded a huge number of illegal immigrants unwilling to risk being prevented from returning to the United States.
"If you go to the Mexican consulate in New York, they'll give you a consular ID card to identify yourself in this country, but they won't give you a voter ID card," Mercedes Miramontes said as she ordered takeout food at the Cinco de Mayo restaurant in Hillsdale. "That's just stupid! If they really wanted us to vote from here, they would have let us do it at the consulates."
There's a reason they didn't, said the restaurant's owner, Benito Huertas:
"In Mexican politics there is just too much corruption."
After losing her voter card, Miramontes went to the Mexican consulate to replace it.
"They told me that if I wanted a new one, I would have to go to Mexico," she said. "For people who are here without [immigration] papers, that's absurd."
"They give you an ID that is totally worthless," she added. "You show it to the cops and they laugh. But they won't give you the card that really counts."
A costly process
Mexicans say the process also excludes many who simply can't afford the cost.
"Who is going to pay some $25 to send ballots and other papers by certified mail to Mexico?" said Hector Matilde, who was playing at a pool hall on Market Street in Passaic. "And if you don't have your voter card, who is going to pay to travel to Mexico to get one?"
Herminio Garcia managed to vote. But he says he doesn't know too many other Mexican-Americans who did.
Garcia, who heads the United Organization of Mexican-Americans in Passaic, recognizes that that other Mexicans here illegally could not risk crossing the border.
"Even if they have [immigration] papers," he said, "not many could afford to fly back to Mexico and spend more than $1,000 just to get a voter registration card."
Gilda Mesa, a spokeswoman for the Mexican consulate in New York, acknowledged that voting from the United States was limited. Although many Mexicans in border states were able to go back to vote, she said, that hasn't been practical in the area covered by the consulate - New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
However, Mesa said, the rules were established by Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, which is independent of the government. The resulting problems were beyond the consulate's control, she said.
Some Mexicans who have valid voter cards said they didn't want to bother with the process.
"It was just too much hassle," Nicolas Aguilar of Passaic said as he pulled the glossy voter card from his wallet. "Had I been able to go somewhere to vote, like people from other countries do, I would have done it. But by mail, the process was too burdensome."
Angel Juarez considers his voter card worthless.
"I wish there was a process I could have trusted," Juarez said as he drank beer with his friends at Los Arcos Mexican Restaurant and Bar in Passaic. "I just don't trust what they would have done with my ballot."
Feeling uninformed
Some cardholders had a completely different motivation.
"If I vote, I would feel like I'm harming the people there, because I'm not well-informed about the candidates and the issues," said Rogelio Munoz, a Passaic restaurant worker. "The people there are the ones who know best."
Others say the reason they are uninformed about the candidates and their platforms is that the Mexican Congress didn't allow presidential candidates - or even their representatives - to campaign abroad.
"If the candidates had been given an opportunity to present their ideas here, there would have been a lot more interest in the election," said Tamara Morales, a Passaic community activist who runs the Casa Puebla community center. "At least more of the people who have voter cards would have tried to vote."
"But there simply was no interest in opening the process to include Mexicans in the United States. There was very little effort to inform people about the election and to make things easier for potential voters. It was too complicated and too inaccessible."
When Mexico's Congress last year gave expatriates the right to vote, Mexican-Americans hailed it as overdue recognition of the billions of dollars they send home every year, Morales said. Then the obstacles emerged.
"They misled us," Morales added. "All they did is blow smoke in our direction."
Email: perez@northjersey.com |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us