Mexico's Absentee Ballot Registration Draws Low Numbers

A fraction of the eligible voters registered for their first chance to vote by absentee ballot in Mexico's presidential election, authorities said Sunday.

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The expatriate voting law was passed last summer by Mexico's Congress, and allows citizens abroad to vote in the July 2 presidential election. Citizens were given until Sunday to apply for an absentee ballot.

But of an estimated 4 million eligible voters worldwide, Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute said only about 18,600 participated.

Among the biggest problems, critics said, was the required voter ID cards were issued only in Mexico.

Only in Mexico? That does seem to be the proper place to get a Mexican voter ID card.

"I feel like I am tied up, that I cannot speak up for my country to say that I am here, I have a voice," said Armando Cid, 38, of Houston, who didn't have an ID card.

Gabriela Gambino, 23, who lives in Albuquerque, N.M., but is originally from Michoacan, Mexico, said most illegal immigrants would be leery of making the trip to Mexico to obtain cards because of travel costs and fear they would not be able to return to this country.

"I think they want to vote but a lot of them can't go," she said. "If they are already here, they don't want to risk going back."

Again, maybe just me, but the very fact that there is "fear they would not be able to return to this country" speaks volumes...like YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Volunteers across the United States also had organized voting drives in malls, flea markets, churches, banks and homes.

A group of Houston business owners organized weeks of voter drives that they said netted more than 1,400 registrations in Texas. They offered free advice on filling out forms along with the roughly $9 postage for the necessary certified mail.

However, about 60 percent of the people who showed interest had to be turned away because they didn't have voter ID cards, said Jose Luis Rodriguez, who led the Houston group.

"There are people in Mexico who say we are not interested," he said. "That was one of the key factors for me to push for this right."

These are people who are very eager to vote in their home country. Emphasis on home.

Tell me again -- why do so many of our politicians want to grant amnesty (confessed or de facto) to those that are here ILLEGALLY? Here's an idea: let's "help" them get back home, where their allegiance AND voter ID cards lie. Then they don't have to suffer the woe of it being difficult to vote in their country because they are living and working ILLEGALLY in ours.

Sounds like win-win to me.

Illegal Immigration
Border Security
Voting
America
Mexico