Taddei warns of high cost of the process to select judges

Mexico City. The president of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Guadalupe Taddei, proposed to the Chamber of Deputies that the process to elect judges, magistrates and ministers requires “a budget in accordance with the size of the exercise” and, later, she specified to reporters that it would cost “more or less the same as a presidential election.”

Last June’s election cost 9.5 billion pesos, of which 3.304 billion pesos were given as prerogatives to political parties.

He argued that it is not possible to specify a budget for an electoral process if it is not yet defined how many positions will be contested, the number of ballots, polling stations and whether it will be only in one district or throughout the country.

“The budget is not capricious, something that occurs to us is definitely what generates the possibility of carrying out a process of this magnitude. We cannot carry out an electoral process with lesser requirements and rigor than what the country is already accustomed to having for the election of the other two powers of the Union,” he said in a nearly half-hour speech in the chamber.

Participating in the seventh forum to analyze the constitutional reform initiative regarding the election of members of the Judicial Branch, Taddei asked legislators to consider that the document should be “added with technical and operational conditions” that guarantee an adequate process.

Taddei, who stated that his intervention was based on the content of the presidential initiative, stressed that he still has to answer how to transfer the process to elect Congress and the Executive to the one proposed by the initiative, and whether or not it will be concurrent with the political processes.

He asked the legislators, for example, how long the campaigns would last, whether they would be monitored, how many polling stations would be set up, the number of ballots and the organization of the candidates’ names; whether there would also be training for polling station officials, how many of these would have to be set up and whether there would be representation of the participants in each one.

The president of the INE offered a review of the organization’s history, an explanation of its functions, and even of the electoral register and the nominal list.

“The INE is authorized to conduct electoral processes up to this point in the powers. We are facing the addition with the principle of access to justice for all citizens of legal age who are able to vote, according to what is presented by the initiative,” he explained.

At this point, he suggested that the reform should “seek harmony between the process of the Executive and Legislative branches” and the one that is sought to define the integration of the Judiciary.

He added that if the initiative is approved by Congress, it must be decided when the electoral process will begin, whether technologies will be used to receive electronic votes or whether voting by ballot will continue.

“Are we going to have officials, how many per polling station? Will the same number of polling stations be installed as the presidential one? What can we base ourselves on to define how many polling stations? Are we going to follow a process similar to the recent one or are we going to define other types of mechanisms?” he asked.

That is, he added, there are still many things to be decided in the initiative. “Will the choice be total, gradual?

All of this is not a political question, but rather an operational one. Because it involves the number of polling stations, officials, the places to be set up and the budget issue, because the budget is not capricious, something that occurs to us is definitely what generates the possibility of carrying out a process of this magnitude.”

Because, he warned, the responsibility of organizing the election will be for the INE and it is “a major responsibility and we cannot fail the citizens who have already learned to vote.”
who has already learned how to vote.”

And he insisted on the questions: “What will be the design of the ballot, how many candidates will there be? Will it be a campaign so educational and pedagogical that it will allow citizens to know how to vote, if this goes ahead?

“Will there be campaigns, what will they be like? How does the INE intervene in radio and television time, will (the candidates) have prerogatives? Who will be able to use them? Will there be a model of oversight, obligated subjects? Sanctions, which ones? The chain of challenge, who will be responsible?

Who delivers the certificate of majority? How will the counting be done? Will there be representatives in the polling stations and in the electoral councils? What about the chain of custody?

“There are so many things to be resolved, and we leave them up in the air with all of you today, because it is important that the INE knows what to do, but it also needs to be clear about everything it is going to undertake so that it is highly effective.”