Mexican Elections at the San Diego Consulate

The 2024 Mexican presidential election was historic for many reasons. Not only was Mexico about to elect a woman president, but it was also the first time that elections were open for Mexican citizens abroad. This means consulates were opened for Mexicans to vote in the presidential election.

In San Diego, people started to show up as early as 03:00 AM, even before the San Diego Marathon was ready to run. Because where the consulate is, getting there with all the road closures was difficult at best. So, the fact that thousands of people showed up is a testament to Mexican citizens who wanted to vote.

However, here is where things get darker. The line outside the Consulate had people standing there since seven in the morning. I mean this at four in the afternoon. There was a clear fear that they would run out of ballots. They did this in places like Washington and Paris. There were also reports of another issue in Madrid, including the system going down. According to them, Mexican authorities were expecting 258,461 Mexicans to vote abroad. That got a lot more. Then we learned a lot of Mexicans could not vote, even though they wanted to. These are the official numbers from the Instituto Nacional Electoral. These are the preliminary numbers: 180,676 people who could vote.

So, specifically to San Diego, the questions soon started in that line. Do they have enough ballots? Mind you, Mexico also allows computers. But the consulate, reportedly, had only four computers. So it was a slow process. And I doubt most of the people in line were able to vote. The voting closed at five in the afternoon, and people were getting angry by the time I left. Rightfully so, people had been there for many hours.

So, what was the environment until people realized they would not vote? There was a paletero selling chips, water, and ice cream. He was making a brisk business, including chicharrones with lemon and chile.

Some people had speakers playing Mexican mariachi music. There were the marathon runners who came to vote after running the race. They sported their medals and numbers, as well as sore, tired muscles.

People wanted to vote. But it was obvious that they were not able to. This was common not just to San Diego. If it was, you could blame local authorities. We have reports, through Univision, of similar issues in Houston and Los Angeles.

For the moment, Xóchitl Gálvez declared victory. The Morena party did, but Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo has not yet done it. However, she is ready to travel to El Zocalo to address her supporters.

The fact that Univision has suggested that we may see a technical tie suggests this may be closer than we expected from pre-electoral polling. I will add this. As people stood in line, some Robert Kennedy Junior partisans were present trying to drive the vote in November.