Tijuana, Mexico – Thousands of Mexicans living in the United States traveled by plane, bus and car to Mexican border cities to vote in Sunday’s hotly contested presidential election.
For some, it was a futile journey.
The Mexican government set up 86 polling stations along the 2,000-mile border, mostly for migrants who missed out on Mexico’s historic absentee ballot campaign.
But the special polls meant for people away from their registered homes had only 750 ballots each, apparently to prevent fraud. And hundreds of voters were turned away in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, after 18 booths ran out of ballots four hours before polls closed.
“This shows how irresponsible electoral officials are,” said Javier de Anda, a construction contractor from the northern Mexican city of Monterrey who was turned away after waiting in the blistering sun for two hours.
“If they know that many of us will be away from our voting districts, they shouldn’t limit the number of ballots,” he said.
Lawmakers approved a law last year to allow the estimated 11 million Mexicans living in the United States to vote by mail for the first time. But the effort was thrown together to beat electoral deadlines, and officials said only about 32,632 valid absentee ballots from 71 countries were mailed to the Federal Electoral Institute. Of those, 28,335 were from the United States.
Maria Salome Rodriguez, a 38-year-old farm worker, drove eight hours with her husband from Fresno, Calif., and waited for two hours to vote outside Tijuana’s airport.
“We want to vote so Mexico can improve and offer jobs to people here, because even though we’re far away, our heart is still with our homeland,” said Rodriguez.
