One thing became clear again on Sunday, June 5: the INE and the Local Public Organizations are a guarantee of reliable electoral processes.
The National Electoral Professional Service once again fulfilled its duty to install the polling stations that make it possible for citizens to exercise their right to vote, a fundamental premise in any democracy.
However, the indicator that makes it possible to conclusively measure the strength of a State’s democratic culture, more than the number of installed polling stations, is the number of people who turn out to vote; and in the six entities where there were elections last Sunday, the great winner was abstentionism.
Voter turnout fell, on average, more than 10 percentage points compared to the 2016 elections, the year in which the governors who conclude their mandate were elected:
It is alarming to note that democracy as a form of government continues to lose ground.
The case of Oaxaca is paradigmatic of what can happen in the country in 2024, only four out of ten people with the right to vote went to the polls.
Something must be done from the legislation to increase the participation of citizens in election days, either by way of sanction or incentive.
Something must be done from the electoral bodies, which are co-responsible for strengthening trust and citizen participation in the democratic and political life of the country.
The INE and the OPL can launch all the messages that their budget can afford to invite citizens to vote, but the truth is that the effectiveness of the current model of electoral organization (ballot voting) is based on abstentionism, and it is demonstrated very easy, the special boxes (where voters in transit vote) are the only ones in which the ballots are finished, the only ones installed from a logistics prepared for participation and not for absenteeism.
That is why the way to process the vote in these boxes is with the help of computers and specialized technical personnel.
It is already good for the political parties that few people go to vote, because the fewer voters the more profitable the electoral operation, they just have to make sure that they are in the preference of those who do vote, and to enable the mechanisms so that those who they prefer not to miss voting.
On the other hand, in demarcations with high rates of electoral participation, this control of the result by political operators is virtually impossible.
From this perspective, the high degree of electoral participation is the feature that provides democracy with the necessary uncertainty about which political party and which candidacy will be elected.
Hence the urgent need to encourage such participation with all the means to which the State has access, of which the most important is education, the other, moving to the national electronic vote.
#lessons #choices