INE carries out technical review to guarantee voting abroad: counselor

The National Electoral Institute (INE) “is not doing any fraud,” but rather a technical review to guarantee the effective voting of Mexicans abroad, said counselor Arturo Castillo, when responding to the statements made this morning by the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

After the electoral body reported that more than 39 thousand registrations to vote outside the country presented anomalies and were therefore eliminated from the nominal list, more than 18 thousand are possible “object of complaint” before the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for the Attention of Electoral Crimes (Fisel).

“There are 18,572 records that present irregularities and are possible the subject of complaints against whoever is responsible. The people who are registering must meet the requirements and that is what we want to guarantee,” stressed counselor Carla Humphrey.

Given the complaints that were made on social networks from citizens abroad due to the notice that they cannot vote, the INE held a press conference to make clarifications.

However, Councilor Castillo admitted that it was a mistake to have sent a generalized email to the 39,724 eliminated from the nominal list, for which he apologized, since it was a communication error that will now double the work to follow up on them. personalized.

“As for the generic mail, it seems to me that it was an error by the INE. It was a communication problem, it was not the most appropriate and it is an area that we have to review due to concerns that were raised on social media. Now we have to wait for the thousands of clarifications and correct the appropriate ones. We don’t want people to be excluded from voting,” she stated.

However, counselor Carla Humphrey clarified that the meetings with the heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Interior “are not new,” as “some voices” want to point out, in response to the head of the Executive Branch, who in the morning conference stated that he instructed the two secretaries, Alicia Bárcena (SRE) and Luisa María Alcalde (Segob) to address this situation and that on Wednesday they will report on this matter.

“There is support with the Foreign Ministry, it is not new that we have meetings, the SRE is informed of what is happening. It’s not new. These works are not just going to start, but the federal agency has followed up on this, because they are responsible for the diplomatic headquarters and that is why they are aware,” he clarified.

Counselor Castillo stressed that the cases that merit reporting are not against the citizens, but against whoever is responsible, because “we do not know who is committing the irregularities.”

For her part, counselor Claudia Zavala highlighted that the certainty of the registry is structural in the Mexican electoral system and “it is precisely what was done based on requests that were made for the review and what generates is a universe of review cases and more than 39 thousand irregularities arise.”

But, he added, “there is no exclusion of anyone. We are in a clarification process. This speaks of the effectiveness of our electoral registry.”