Dozens of Mexican students and young people were given a crash course in U.S. electoral procedure at an election night reception organized by the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara and held at the Instituto Cultural Mexicano-Norteamericano.
As the election results trickled in on Tuesday evening, several hundred guests crammed into the language institute’s main auditorium that had been fitted out with screens and monitors relaying live television and Internet feeds from both Mexico and the United States.
“We wanted to reach out to a different group and make it a more inclusive experience,” said Consulate Public Affairs Officer Matt Conoley, on the decision not to invite “VIPs” as in previous years.
Consulate staff even set up a voting urn in which guests deposited ballots for either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.
Consular officers mixed with guests to explain the intricacies of the electoral college and battleground states to those unfamiliar with the process.
“Regardless of the result of this election and the complexity of our system, our democracy is a motive of pride for all North Americans,” Consul General Susan Abeyta told guests in a brief address.
She highlighted “a strong civil society, respect for the rule of law, the independence of the country’s institutions, free expression and freedom of the press” as some of the pillars of U.S. democracy.
Two students, Ricardo Tapia and Maria Jose Alexander Villa, held a mock debate – each representing one of the presidential candidates – and spoke eloquently on immigration, security and trade issues, agreeing that Mexico and the United States need further integration to improve the lives of their citizens.
“If I were able to I would have voted for Romney, yes,” said Tapia, a seventh semester student at the Tec de Monterrey University in Guadalajara who is currently interning at the Consulate. “His strategies convince me more and he seems to be more willing to work across party lines.”
Nonetheless, Tapia credited Obama for his foreign policy achievements, especially in the Middle East, and said the strong relationship between Mexico and the United States is unlikely to change as a result of the election.
Tapia also commended the U.S. electoral process as “a model of democracy for Mexico and the rest of the world.”
Commenting on Mexico’s recent presidential election and its fractious aftermath, he said: “Democracy is about understanding and including minorities but at the end of the day it is the voice of the majority that counts.”
Alexander, an industrial engineering student who is eying a career in politics, said she would have voted for Obama largely because of “his immigration policies and unconditional support of the Dream Act.”
Instituto Cultural Mexicano-Norteamericano Council President Francisco Javier Casillas Velasco noted the importance of such bicultural events, saying they helped significantly in furthering understanding and dialogue between both nations.
