Mexican nationals in Austin face barriers to voting in Mexico's historic election
Gerardo Flores was proud and determined.
He drove to the Mexican Consulate in Austin late Sunday morning as millions of other Mexicans prepared to participate in an election that was almost guaranteed to usher in the country's first female president. It was also to be the country's largest, with more than 20,000 offices up for election, and the first presidential election in which Mexicans abroad could vote in person.
But when the 58-year-old arrived at the large, semi-transparent glass doors of the consulate in a Southeast Austin office park, he quickly realized he wouldn't be participating. A group of about eight was outside, speculating that the consulate was not going to open. It didn't.
"It bothered me. Since I've had my credential, I've voted. All these years," Flores said. He told the American-Statesman in Spanish he had been told by consular staff that he'd be able to vote there when he registered.
The Austin consulate was not one of the 20 selected by Mexico's electoral agency, known as the National Electoral Institute, to have in-person voting. But that information appeared not to have reached many who hoped to exercise their democratic right. Univision 62 reported dozens showed up to the consulate Sunday.
The Statesman spoke to many others who were unable to find out where they could vote or who were unable to successfully vote online. As Mexico made history electing Claudia Sheinbaum, many in the U.S. felt excluded.
The Pew Research Center has estimated that about 10.7 million Mexican-born individuals live in the United States. To vote in Sunday's elections, Mexican citizens needed both a credential from the National Electoral Institute and a registration to vote abroad for the year's election.
Only about 226,000 individuals met both of those criteria, according to researchers at the Center for the U.S. and Mexico, part of Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Rodrigo Montes de Oca, a research scholar at the Center for the U.S. and Mexico, said this two-step process has been the case since the government first allowed expatriates to vote in 2006.
Voters have increasingly met these requirements. This year's registration figure was higher than the 181,000 voters abroad who registered in 2018 and the 59,000 who registered in 2012, according to Montes de Oca.
But throughout the U.S., increased participation was hindered when would-be voters were turned away from consulates, including in Houston and Dallas.
There were other obstacles, too.
Juvenal Cisneros, 58, who stopped by the consulate Monday, told the Statesman he had tried to vote Sunday and thought he was registered, but couldn't figure out how. Cisneros said he called friends and tried to comprehend the information online, but he gave up.
Omar Villarreal, an Austin-based construction worker who used the consulate Tuesday, said he logged in to vote online.
The loading icon "kept spinning and spinning, maybe because of the high amount of people who were trying to use it," Villarreal told the Statesman in Spanish.
He eventually gave up but was happy to find out the next day the candidate he preferred had won.
Back in Mexico, Sheinbaum, who represented MORENA, the party founded by popular presidential incumbent Andrés Manuel López Obrador, won handsomely. She earned about twice the votes of her nearest opponent, Xóchitl Gálvez.
Montes de Oca said this year's mishaps should teach the Mexican government that "there are many more people interested" in voting and that officials are going to have to be flexible in how they conduct elections for those abroad.
This, he said, should mean expanding in-person voting options, increasing voter information and allowing candidates to campaign abroad, an act that is currently prohibited by Mexican law.
The Consulate General of Mexico in Austin did not respond to the Statesman's questions submitted by email or in person.