Thousands of lakeshore area inhabitants will mark a milestone in modern day electoral history on Sunday, July 1 as they join the pioneer generation of electronic voters.
Chapala, Ixtlahuacan de los Membrillos, Jocotepec, Poncitlan, Tizapan el Alto and Tuxcueca are among the 43 municipalities where the urna electronica (electronic ballot box) will be employed in the election of Jalisco’s next governor, new state legislators and local governments. Voters will utilize conventional paper to mark their choices in the federal election for president, senators and congressional deputies.
Jalisco’s Electoral Institute (IEPC) is installing the high tech voting machines at all 525 polling places located in electoral district 17, headquartered in Jocotepec, and across the board in district 1 and the municipality of Gomez Farias. It is estimated that more than a half million voters, representing slightly more than 10 percent of Jalisco’s electorate, will cast electronic ballots this year.
The urna electronica is a single unit comprising a 12-inch touch screen where the ballot with the political party logos and names of the candidates appear and a transparent container which collects printed slips registering a paper backup of the vote. The machines are also specially equipped to facilitate voting by persons with visual and hearing impairments.
Voting tallies will be automatically transmitted to election authorities, permitting a rapid vote count within as little as 30 minutes after the polls close.
On June 17 IPEC held the last of five trial runs of the electronic voting system organized in the designated communities to work out technical glitches and familiarize voters with the new fangled procedure. The latest test ran fairly smoothly, with some minor problems in data transmission from several isolated rural localities. Nonetheless, all polls are being supplied with paper ballots to be used in case of any system failures on election day.
A public opinion survey conducted among persons who took part in the fourth trial run revealed that more 95 per cent of participants found the equipment to be efficient and user-friendly. About 75 percent expressed confidence in the reliability of the new system.
Jalisco first introduced electronic voting in Tuxcueca in the 2009 election.
Smooth transitions
Whatever the outcome of the Sunday vote, lakeshore constituents anticipate smooth transitions when new municipal authorities take office on October 1. After five decades of virtually unrivaled rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), power switches between rival political parties have become increasingly common place over the last 20 years.
In 1992, Raul Robles Puga became the first man to win Chapala’s mayoral race under the National Action Party (PAN) banner. Since then PRI and PAN have repeatedly alternated control at city hall. In recent elections voters in Jocotepec, Ixtlahaucan de los Membrillos and Poncitlan have chosen their mayors from the ranks of PAN, PRI, the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the Green Ecologist Party (PVEM).
This year’s election could bring about a few other historical footnotes.
If PRI candidate Gerardo Degollado (PRI) wins his bid for the Chapala’s mayor’s seat, he would rank as the second man to hold that office more than once, following in the footsteps of Fernando Cuevas Garcia who served in the 1953-1955 and 1968-1970 terms.
Jocotepec’s PAN mayoral candidate Laura Garcia Mendoza is running to step into the post currently held by her husband Mario Chavez Morales, making her the first woman with the chance of being elected as the immediate successor of a spouse as head of the local government.
With female candidates also on the ballot for this year’s mayoral races in Ixtlahuacan de los Membrillos, Octolan, Poncitlan and Tuxcueca, the distaff side has strong possibilities of dominating government rule in the lakeshore region over the next three years.