El Paso residents are left out

Step.- Dozens of El Paso residents headed to the Mexican embassy building this Sunday with the intention of voting, but found their facilities closed.

Unaware of the voting system implemented by the National Electoral Institute—INE—El Paso residents arrived early in the morning to participate in the federal election.

“Now it turns out I can’t vote here, so I was surprised,” said Martin Arriola, who was ready to vote with his voter card.

After showing his discomfort, he asked election and diplomatic officials to immediately inform them about the process and how it would be carried out in the United States.

On the door of diplomatic headquarters was a form: Consulate in El Paso not authorized to vote in person. The closest consulates operated by the National Electoral Institute are: Phoenix, Arizona, Dallas, and Houston, Texas.

He said he, like many others there, had not seen any advertisements on television, radio and newspapers about how it would be conducted and where to vote.

The Mexican-American said that although the INE maintained campaigns to spread the vote abroad, these were not very effective.

Mexicans complained about the poor information system, “They spread it on the networks, but many of us don’t know how to access or use cell phones,” noted another interested party.

“There’s no way I’m going to go to Juaridos because I don’t want to stop voting,” the 75-year-old man said, followed by others. “Many of us have been here, and no one has seen us.”

Recently, Mauricio Ibarra Ponce de Leon, Consul General of the Mexican Embassy in El Paso, said that 23 voting centers will be established in the United States, Canada and Europe, 20 of which will be in this country.

For the state of Texas, two were opened in the cities of Dallas and Houston. The rest settled in cities like Chicago, Washington, New York, Raleigh, Los Angeles, Phoenix.

Only pre-registered voters could vote at these sites, but eventually up to 1,500 unregistered voters were admitted to a diplomatic headquarters.

In this election, the Mexican community expressed their desire to vote electronically, by mail, and in person yesterday, June 2.