The Impact of Mexicans Voting Abroad

The Christian Science Monitor has a piece on Mexicans voting abroad, an issue that has been getting more coverage. All of these pieces are speculative. Simply in terms of numbers, voters abroad "could" have a big impact. Recent history casts some doubt on this.

If we look back at the 2012 presidential election, 40,714 voted out of only 59,115 registered, which is 69%. The results themselves were interesting:

Josefina Vázquez Mota 42.17%
AMLO 39%
Enrique Peña Nieto 15.62%

This is a heterogeneous group but in general it is bad news for the PRI.

For the 2006 election, 40,876 were registered and 32,621 voted, which is 79.8%. The PRI won 4.17%, the PAN won 58.29% and AMLO 34%.

On the face of it, then, we should expect a continued gradual rise in voting abroad but no sudden shift. Here is one counterargument:

But a recent reform allowing voters to renew their required IDs at Mexican Consulates and register to vote online could be a game-changer in this year’s race. As of April, more than half a million voter IDs have been delivered to Mexicans abroad, and close to 670,000 requests for IDs have been made.

Could be, but you still have to mail your ballot in. Either way, based on past results the PRI will be hurt. If this really surges, then the PRI is just hurt worse.

Right now, polls have AMLO at 47.8%, Ricardo Anaya at 29.9%, and José Antonio Meade at 16.7%. We should expect the vote abroad to help give Anaya a but of a boost but AMLO will still be strong.