IEV initiates programs to safeguard elections (written August 30)

This election-day Sunday is as much to judge the efficacy of Veracruz’s Electoral Institute (IEV) as it is to determine who is to fill numerous municipal positions. Similar to the case of the US in the 2000 elections where Bush ended up being handed the presidency, few here in Mexico believe President Felípe Calderón actually received the most votes in the July 2006 elections. Everyday, in any of the national papers, editorials can be found calling for the installation of the ‘true’ winner of the July elections, PRD's Andreas Manuel Lopez Obredor (AMLO). In a society still in the process of healing the fresh wound of electoral fraud, it makes sense that come this Sunday people will be watching the IEV very, very closely.

Today, the IEV officially inaugurated two electoral programs that they claim will help ensure the efficiency and validity of the elections. The first, the Program of Preliminary Electoral Results (PREP), promises to at least begin releasing preliminary result estimates, online, two hours after polls close Sunday evening. The second, the System of Electoral Voting Information (SIJE), has the even more difficult task of trying to monitor the status of all polling places in the city. To make this happen, on election day, 850 volunteer workers will be running around from poll to poll sending status updates to about 80 people stationed in the main computer lab in the central offices of the IEV, processing the incoming information.

The IEV came under fire yesterday when national representative of the PRI, Fernando Vázquez Maldonado accused the IEV of overlooking clear violations to the state electoral code committed by PAN candidates. He stated that PAN candidates had on several occasions been seen transporting dozens of boxes of campaign material in vans marked by the logo of the federal government. He also expressed concern that heads of local polling places could not be trusted with the voting cards that were delivered state-wide by the IEV yesterday afternoon.

In addressing his second concern, held by probably most Mexicans, the IEV has taken extra measures to ensure the security of polling places. In coordination with the Auxiliary and Patrimonial Protection Police (IPAX), IEV has stationed over 12000 security guards at voting sites. They have even indicated several ‘red zone,’ or politically unstable places, including Las Choapas in the north and Tantoyuca in the south, where extra security measures are necessary.