Political Observation: Elections and Spending

Jorge Alcocer V.

Tyrians and Trojans agree that our electoral system is complicated and overloaded with rules. This condition is usually attributed to what Dr. Jorge Carpizo called back in 1994 “the fair of mistrust.” For every grievance, for every complaint of real, potential or perceived electoral fraud, the legal rule was applied and the electoral body had to take action (INE/OPLE). But since almost nothing in life is free, every action requires a cost.

However, from some time to the present, the increase in the cost of electoral processes is primarily due to actions taken by the National Electoral Institutions (NIEs) or the 32 Federal Subjects (OPEL). These are actions in the heat of projects that go beyond the legal field; Initiatives that claim to care for the rights of citizens or mitigate the disadvantaged situation of vulnerable groups that incur costs charged to the public treasury and for which only a few are held accountable. There are very few benefactors. The end result is an increase in the cost of electoral spending.

An example of this kind of activity is the so-called “electronic ballot box”. In Mexico, we have been voting since the 19th century using paper ballots that are dropped into the ballot box so that after the polling day closes, the citizens who make up the polls, who do it for free, count the votes and cast them. them in the result record. Due to mistrust, since 1994 tickets have been produced with security measures comparable to those of Bank of Mexico banknotes. As if this exaggerated concern weren’t enough, several years ago several local electoral institutions and the IFE undertook parallel and isolated projects to build an electronic ballot box.

An electronic ballot box is an offline voting machine, not connected to the Internet, which allows a citizen, after identifying himself to a polling station officer, to cast his vote in a digital ballot that appears on the screen of the machine, which, with the software installed in that the same sum of the results by party and taking into account other relevant data such as the number of voters who voted, invalid votes or unregistered candidates and the sums for each item.

The pioneers in the electronic ballot box project were the electoral institutions of Jalisco, Coahuila and DF. In the IFE/INE, several generations of councilors discussed this issue a lot, formed expert panels and even achieved a provisional rule to give legal protection to these projects, which today are the ones , what we call “pilots”, that is, test exercises that are used in some polling stations on election day.

Almost two decades have passed since the first prototypes of electronic ballot boxes appeared, and we continue to vote by paper ballots printed on security paper. The cost of pilot projects.

Last year it was announced with great fanfare that in Coahuila, 74 polling stations will host electronic ballot boxes, which will accept the civil vote next Sunday, June 4th. I do not know how much was spent on the implementation of the project, in parallel with voting on printed ballots, but I believe that it was a considerable amount. On Tuesday of this week, INE announced that it was canceling it and that electronic ballot boxes would not be used because they found a “configuration error.” (Bulletin 193, May 30, 2023).

The State of Mexico decided to introduce a computerized early voting system in the cases and according to the rules established by the Electoral Institute of that state. The deadline for this method was closed, 172 citizens used it. The electoral roll in the state of Mexico is the largest in the country, with almost 13 million people registered. How much did the early voting project cost?

At every local or federal election, it is announced that Mexicans living abroad will be able to vote by mail or over the Internet. Election consultants and officials make paid trips to various countries to “supervise” electoral work at embassies and consulates. Millions of pesos are spent annually on such voting, and every year the number of Mexicans voting from abroad is minimal. Nothing matters repeated evidence that Mexicans living in the US want to vote, but not in the elections.

These and other issues require attention and solutions. In order to reduce the cost of elections, the first condition is to overcome distrust and eliminate what is no longer needed, as well as to prevent election advisers’ speeches from leading to unnecessary or profitable expenses and without reporting.

P.S. On Sunday, June 4, elections will be held in the states of Coahuila and Mexico. I hope there will be great participation of citizens, and abstinence is a big loss.