The 2006 Mexican Elections:Lessons and prospects

for the future

November 2006

Some important lessons1) You can always count on citizens to organize clean elections

2) Technical competence and expertise are key for electionmanagement

3) Political context can create “the perfect storm”

4) Margin does matter

5) Leveling the playing field is crucial for electoral competitiveness

6) The left showed its best electoral performance ever

7) Fraud allegations can have an impact despite the absence ofevidence

8) Solving new problems with old rules was troublesome, butaction just had to be taken

9) Don’t change what worked well, only fix what didn’t: prospects offuture reforms

1. You can count on citizens• Almost 1m randomly-selected

citizens were ready to receiveand count votes

• Citizens installed and operated130,477 polling places

• 1,992 non partisan citizensoversaw the process as membersof 32 state-level and 300 district-level electoral councils

• 25,000 citizens watched theelection (electoral observers)

• Highest turnout in absolutefigures: 41.7 million

2. Technical competence is key• All logistics and operational goals were

achieved

– 99.99% of polling stations installed

– Electoral ballots and documents producedwith top anti-counterfeit technology

– Voter ID cards (71.3m)

– Special ink to prevent duplicate voting

• Electoral results systems worked safelyand adequately

– Quick count

– PREP

– District-level tally sheet count

35.33%

35.31%

35.29%

35.34%

35.07% - 35.63%

34.94% - 35.70%

34.24% - 36.38%

0.56%35.89%Court Final Count

0.58%35.89%Tally Sheet Count (IFE)

0.62%35.91%PREP (all tally sheets withinconsistencies included)*

1.04%36.38%PREP (IFE)

-35.77% - 36.40%Bayesian Method

(minimum and maximum range)

-35.68% - 36.53%Classic Method

(minimum and maximumrange)

-35.25% - 37.40%Robust Method(minimum and maximum range)

Quick Count (IFE)

DifferenceFCH-AMLO

* Vote tallies from sheets with inconsistencies were available from the PREP internet site under a specific link, butnot part of the total PREP vote count, as a result of a February 2006 agreement between IFE and political parties.

The IFE produced precise resultsQuick Count, PREP, tally sheet count, and Electoral Court results

Exit polls and private quick counts

MarginFC-AMLO

Quick count

1.13536.1Quick count

1.730.932.6Exit pollGaussc

-2.43734.6Exit pollCovarrubias y Asociados

0.5136.5137.02Quick count

134.835.8Exit pollArcop

036.536.5Mixture of bothConsulta Mitofsky

1.63637.6

2.334.9Exit pollInvestigaciones Sociales AplicadasS.C.

036.536.5Mixture of bothIpsos Bimsa

2.135.938Quick count

43539Exit pollConsultores y Marketing PolíticoS.C.

1.335.837.1Quick count

23537Exit pollBGC, Ulises Beltrán y Asocs.S.C.

37.2

3. “The perfect storm”

• A deeply ingrained culture of mistrust in politicsand political institutions

• Pre-electoral context of political conflict,particularly between President Fox and AMLO

• AMLO’s impeachment process was widelyperceived as a political attack, as he was leadingpresidential vote intention polls

• The President: political referee or part of theconflict?

• Political actors unwilling to abide by the outcome

4. Margin does matter

23.4% 6.4% 0.56%

1994

50.1%

26.7%

16.3%

2000

42.5%

36.1%

16.6%

2006

35.89% 35.33%

22.22%

5. Leveling the playing field

Media Campaign Spending*

Radio 8.3 8.1 4.7

TV 11.5 24.3 26.8

Total Media spending 20.02 32.51 31.5

TOTAL CAMPAIGN SPENDING 23.4 34.8 40.4

IFE media monitoring

TV ads (in seconds) 275,309 319,155 276,311

News coverage (in seconds) 3,732,130 5,502,741 4,669,515

* Spending figures in millions of USD as disclosed by parties on the Preliminary Campaign Finance Reports

6. The left showed its best performance

28.9818.6716.12FederalDeputies

29.6918.8516.34Senate

35.3316.6416.34President

200620001994

Electoral performance of the Mexican left(% of total vote)

7. Allegations of electoral fraud“Early results were manipulated (PREP)”

• Security and integrity: The PREP had state-of-the-art security measuresand was overseen by an independent technical committee of five renownedscientists

• Urban bias of the PREP:

� Polling places in Mexico’s urban areas finish the balloting and sendthe results earlier than those in rural areas. If a candidate has a strongervote in urban areas, the PREP will reflect that as an early advantage.

• Second check as safeguard:

� Party representatives could compare each tally sheet with the PREPresult

�The difference between the official tally sheet count and the PREP wasonly 0.04%

7. Allegations of electoral fraud

7. Allegations of electoral fraud

11.76 m 11.06 mUrban Vote38.15% 35.89%

2.98 m 3.43 mNon-urban vote29.12% 33.48%

19,016 11,090Mexicans livingabroad 58.29% 34.00%

Urban and non-urban vote

7. Allegations of electoral fraud“There are thousands of numerical mistakes in the tally sheets”

• Less numerical mistakes than in 2000:

� 2000: 51.4% of the tally sheets had filling out mistakes

� 2006: 46.7% of the tally sheets had filling out mistakes

•Tally sheets have two main sections:

� Reference field – information about number of receivedballots, number of marked ballots, voter turnout, etc.

� Votes field – votes per candidate and party

• Numerical mistakes were concentrated in the reference field anddid not affect the vote counting

• Mistakes show a random pattern and were unbiased

Tally Sheet

Votes field

Tally Sheet

ReferenceField

7. Allegations of electoral fraud

“The IFE did not allow a full vote recount –which was theonly way to recover credibility in the process”

Three vote counts:

1. Election Day – citizens acting as pollworkers counted the votes and wrotedown the results in the tally sheets.

2. Tally sheet count -- Citizens, IFEofficials and party representativesreviewed each one of the tally sheetsand checked the total sum of votesper district.

3. Court final count -- The FederalElectoral Court ordered a recount of9 percent of the precincts. The Courtrecount confirmed IFE’s results.

8. Old rules, new problems

� Political advertising and activism priorto legal campaign period (pre-campaigns)

� Negative advertising

� Political advertising by business andcivil society organizations(electioneering ads are only allowed toparties)

� Political activism of the President, theGovernors and other public servants

� Compliance with campaign spendinglimits

8. Actions taken by the IFE

� Enforce disclosure of pre-campaign expenditures

� Banning of negative ads which violated theelectoral law (slander, libel, insult, injury,defamation or denigration)

� Neutrality rules banning government ads 40 daysbefore Election Day and expressions of politicalsupport by the President, governors and otherofficials

� Enforce early disclosure of expenditures in mediaadvertising during campaigns + media monitoringto track every ad

9. Prospects for future reform• Two areas to be distinguished:

a. Electoral organization and management

• IFE’s effectiveness has been proven again

• We need to harmonize impartiality with accuracy (tally sheetsfilling)

• Areas of opportunity: poll workers’ training, electoral documents,information systems

b. Political refereeing / arbitration

• What kind of democracy do we want?

� Liberal model?

� Regulatory model (restrictive)?

• Incentives to ensure abiding by the rules and by theoutcome

10. Topics for future reform

� The role of the incumbent President, stategovernors and other government officials

� Political advertising on mass media

� Pre-campaigns

� Campaign spending and funding

The 2006 Mexican Elections

November 2006