The Federal Electoral Institute (Instituto Federal Electoral, IFE) Website states that the Voter registration card (Credencial para votar) is issued by the IFE's Federal Registry of Voters (Registro Federal de Electores, RFE) (IFE 2003; IEEM 2003). In addition, the IFE Website noted that

[i]t takes the IFE about twenty days to process the registration of citizens and to issue the photo voting card, which has several security features in order to guarantee reliability. After this period, the IFE notifies the citizen to pick up the card. To receive it, citizens must show proof of their identity, usually by means of an official document.

The photo-voting card is needed to vote, since the voters' lists used on polling day only include the citizens that applied for their registration and retrieved their card in the corresponding office or module.

The electoral registration is permanent. Registered voters only need to verify that the information in their card is still correct, or update it, especially after a change of address, since the polling site and the voters' list are closely linked with the citizen's address.

The Registry of Voters and its different instruments have a federal nature. [However] they are used for both federal and local elections (IFE 2003).

As mentioned in MEX28194.E of 8 December 1997, the voter registration card is used to verify the identity of voters at polling stations during an election (IFE 2003); however, the card is also an official identification document accepted widely (mayor aceptation) in Mexico (IEEM 2003). Latinamerica Press also reported in June 2003 that the voter registration card, "contain[ing] a digitized photo and thumb print ... is essential ID in Mexico for everything from cashing a check to entering a public building" (18 June 2003).

With regard to whether a voter registration card is perforated in some manner once a person has voted, similar to information found in MEX29226.E of 23 April 1998, the IFE Website stated that during an election, to signify that the voter has cast his or her ballot, the voter card is marked and "indelible ink" is applied to the voter's right thumb (IFE 2003). While the Website does not state in what manner the card is marked, in a 19 May 2004 telephone interview, an official from the political section of the Embassy of Mexico in Canada noted that a designated spot on the card indicating the election year is perforated (perforado) once the person has voted. Moreover, similar to information found in a 1993 news article attached to MEX17608.E of 13 June 1994, an October 2003 news story mentioned that "[a]fter voting, the voter ID card is punched so that the card cannot be used again in that election" (San Diego Daily Transcript 17 Oct. 2003).

The Embassy of Mexico official also stated that the information about whether a cardholder must notify the IFE of a change of address, provided in MEX28194.E of 8 December 1997, was still valid in May 2004 (Embassy of Mexico 19 May 2003): According to Mexican law, the citizen must notify the IFE of any change of home address within 30 days of moving (ibid.). However, the law does not provide for any penalties if the citizen fails to notify the authorities (ibid.). If the person does not notify the IFE of the change of address, the polling station where the person votes will continue to direct correspondence to the last reported address (ibid.). In addition, the official noted that each voter registration card is valid for the citizen's lifetime and a new card is issued only if the old card is, for example, damaged or stolen (ibid.); a citizen can possess only voter registration card at a time (ibid.).

The following information was obtained in a 20 May 2004 telephone interview with the Director of Electoral Studies at the IFE International Affairs unit in Mexico City and updates information provided in MEX38170.E of 18 December 2001 and MEX39384.E of 21 August 2002: The Director stated that there is in fact a designated spot on the voter card that indicates how many times a replacement card has been issued. According to the Director, to the right of "Year registered" (Ano de regsitro) appears the year the person received his or her first card and to the right of the year there is a number that indicates the number of replacement cards the person has received. For example, if someone first received a voter card in 1992 it would be marked 1992 followed by 01 to indicate that it was the first card. If the person's card was stolen in 1993, this person would apply for a replacement card and this card would then be marked with 1992 followed by 02 to signify that it was the second card issued.

With respect to access to voter card registration information, the Embassy of Mexico official stated that the database of voters is only for IFE use and that the police or other government authorities are not allowed to access the data contained in the database (ibid.). However, in a June 2003 article about the selling of voter registration lists to an American-based company called Choicepoint, Latinamerica Press noted that

[f]our thousand underpaid IFE officials in 32 states had access to the voter registration lists, which were contained on a series of easily-copied CDs. In addition, the political parties, whose veniality is legendary, all had access to the discs.

In May 2003, The Guardian, reporting on the same story, noted that IFE president Jose Woldenberg acknowledged that IFE investigators discovered that a Mexican company paid an intermediary "400,000 pesos [CDN$48,242 (Oanda 19 May 2004)] for a hard disk full of personal data drawn largely from the electoral roll" and that this company then sold the disk to Choicepoint for US$250,000 (5 May 2003). A specialist in Mexican information law, Julio Tellez, noted that the companies involved in this scheme should have known that use of personal information from the voting registration system is exclusively for election purposes; any other use is prohibited (The Guardian 5 May 2003).

In January 2003, Es Mas television news agency reported on the seemingly widespread use of fake voter registration cards by minors (under 18 years of age) in Mexico City (6 Jan. 2003). According to Maria de los Angeles Fromow, special prosecutor for Electoral Crimes of the Federal Attorney General's office (fiscal especializada para la Atencion de Delitos Electorales de la Procuraduria General de la Republica, PGR), 60 per cent of complaints reported to this division refer to alteration or illicit issuance of voter registration cards (Es Mas 6 Jan. 2003). Moreover, RFE Director, Alberto Alonso, stated that the federal registry of voters has received news, with some frequency (con cierta frecuencia), about attempts to falsify voter registration cards (ibid.).

In an April 2004 news article, President Vincente Fox announced proposed amendments to the Federal Penal Code including an initiative that would increase the prison sentence for altering or falsifying a voter registration card from three to seven years to four to eight years (El Independiente 23 Apr. 2004). Information about the status of this legal proposal could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

Embassy of Mexico in Canada, Ottawa. 19 May 2004. Telephone interview with official in the political section.

Es Mas [Mexico City]. 6 January 2003. Marco Antonio Silva. "Adultos por encargo." http://www.esmas.com/noticierostelevisa/losreporteros/338205.html [Accessed 19 May 2004]

The Guardian [London]. 5 May 2003. Oliver Burkeman and Jo Tuckman. "How US Paid For Secret Files On Foreign Citizens." http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4661683-110878,00.html [Accessed 19 May 2004]

El Independiente [Mexico City]. 23 April 2004. Jorge de Luna. "Propone Fox carcel por anomalias en campanas." http://www.independiente.com.mx/articulos.php? (Google cache) [Accessed 19 May 2004]

Instituto Electoral del Estado de Mexico (IEEM). 2003. "Credencial para votar con fotografia." http://www.ieem.org.mx/ieem/ieem_2003/servi_ciudadano/ieem_credencial.htm [Accessed 19 May 2004]

Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE), Mexico City. 20 May 2004. International Affairs unit. Telephone interview with the Director of Electoral Studies.

____. 2003. "Frequently Asked Questions About Mexico's Electoral Regime and the Federal Elections for the Year 2003" http://www.ife.org.mx/wwwcai/25preguntasENGLISH.htm [Accessed 19 May 2004]

Latinamerica Press [Lima]. 18 June 2003. Vol. 35, No. 12. John Ross. "Violation of National Security."

Oanda. 19 May 2004. "FXConverter - 164 Currency Converter Results." http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic [Accessed 19 May 2004]

San Diego Daily Transcript. 17 October 2003. Larry Stirling. "Trust But Verify." http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?Commentary_ID=141&SourceCode=20031017tzb [Accessed 19 May 2004]