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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Mexico Gives Goody Bags to Overseas Voters |
| 2006-06-29 |
| Mexico has given expatriates the royal treatment as it launches the country's first foreign ballot, sending out DVDs, CDs and even souvenir bracelets to voters for Sunday's presidential election. Every one of the 40,876 Mexicans living abroad who requested ballots has been sent a virtual goody bag full of democracy in the mail. There's a DVD featuring speeches by all five presidential candidates. For people who don't have DVD players, there's an audio compact disc, too. There's also a full-color booklet with messages from the candidates, a comic book showing how to vote and a woven bracelet that says, "With my vote, Mexico is complete." I'm sure the flip side of the bracelet says, "Mama wants you to send money!" Oh, yeah, and there's a ballot, too, along with a prepaid envelope for sending it back to Mexico. It's all part of Mexico's historic and expensive effort to extend voting rights to Mexicans living outside the country. Elections officials have spent $24 million setting up the mail-in system, or nearly $600 per vote requested. A relative bargain, considering their expats are the second-largest source of foreign revenues.... In the process, they are collecting a wealth of information about Mexican citizens abroad, mapping them right down to the U.S. ZIP codes they live in. "I'm astonished at how far they've gone and how far beyond the United States they've gone," said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, director of the Overseas Vote Foundation, which helps U.S. expatriates vote. In Mexico, the Federal Elections Institute has been criticized for getting so few of the estimated 4.2 million eligible Mexican voters in the United States to request ballots for the vote on Sunday. Many Mexicans were discouraged by the mail-in process and a ban on campaigning abroad, which stifled interest in the vote. But those voters who did request ballots are being lavished with attention. For votes to count in the election, election officials in Mexico City must receive mail-in ballots by Saturday. Many absentee voters have already completed their ballots and put them in the mail. By Tuesday, about 29,000 ballots had been received. Each voter got a custom-printed ballot and a matching envelope, each coded with ultraviolet ink and featuring the voter's registration number stamped in high-tech microprinting to thwart counterfeiters. Each ballot sent to the United States included postage for $8.53 so voters could send their vote to Mexico City by international registered mail. Yet, when we want their help with tracking a criminal, there are no computers available, and they tell us how technologically backwards they are....interesting. Each packet cost the government about $20, including round-trip postage, said Patricio Ballados, overseas vote coordinator for the Elections Institute. It's a far cry from U.S. absentee ballots, which often come with no candidate information, said Will Tucker, national coordinator for the Overseas Americans Voting Rights Project. "So this celebration of voting and what the franchise means to people, even giving out commemorative bracelets, is very commendable," he said. Mexican expatriates can vote only for president, not for legislative or local officials. That has allowed Mexico to The institute has even created a computerized atlas showing, for example, that there are 61 registered voters in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and six in Walla Walla County, Wash. Oh yeah, there's six times the Mexicans in Germany as there are in Washington. Riiiiight. The atlas is online at www. ife.org.mx. Arizona ranks fourth among U.S. states in terms of Mexican voters registered, with 1,476. Phoenix accounts for 736 of those voters, making it the fourth-ranked city behind Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston. Elections experts have also learned some interesting facts about Mexican voters' origins. For example, Mexico City and neighboring Mexico state account for more than a quarter of all overseas voters, even though they have fewer citizens in the United States than more rural states like Jalisco, Michoacan and Zacatecas. That could be because Mexico City residents tend to be more Mexicans in Europe are also more likely to vote than Mexicans in the United States, the numbers indicate. "The migration (to Europe) is normally a little different. It's more professionals, people who are a little more politically active," Ballados said. The ballots are being collected at a warehouse at the Mexico City airport and will be opened at 6 p.m. Sunday. Voters' addresses will remain secret. That's where the bracelets come in, Ballados said. "There were fears that we were going to give the information to (U.S.) Homeland Security," he said. They never cooperated with our government before, why would they have done it this time?? "So people will realize that nothing happened to those people who voted . . . and that they're even walking around the streets with bracelets saying, 'I voted.' " "In this way, we're planning for the future, so that next time we have an overseas vote, those people who had doubts will register." |
| Posted by:Swamp Blondie |
| #1 Every one of the 40,876 Mexicans living abroad.. Considering the millions and millions just in the US alone, that's a pretty poor return on effort. Think that maybe they don't buy the fake process to keep the 40 family clans owning 60 percent of the country in power? |
| Posted by: Sniper Chease8428 2006-06-29 11:38 |