Hundreds of Mexicans were unable to exercise their right to vote on Sunday, which generated frustration and annoyance at the Mexican Consulate in San José.
Around 5:00 pm, the consulate closed access to the polls so voters used force in an attempt to keep the doors open.
“Disappointed that I couldn’t even exercise my vote and I came very early and I got up at 5:00 am, to be able to get here and 12 hours have already passed and I couldn’t make it,” explained Rafael Velásquez, Mexican.
Rafael was just one of the hundreds of Mexicans who waited for hours under the sun and who even resorted to bringing portable toilets and giving away water to get through the long day.
“We are immigrants and we are lifting up Mexico too and it is not possible for them to pay us with this,” Rafael said.
Inside the consulate, the INE enabled six digital ballot boxes that proved to be not enough for the large number of voters in line.
“It’s sad because there are simply six boxes for a city like San José, the consulate that receives people from all the nearby cities like Salinas, Watsonville and it was a lack of respect,” said Cesar Sánchez, a Mexican.
There were 1,500 places available for these Mexicans who had not been able to register, and the INE representative told Telemundo 48 that of these only around 600 were able to vote, so there were 900 places left that could still exercise their right. but they did not do it due to lack of time.
“What went wrong? I don’t know, what I was telling you about that initially there was a response capacity of the voter that increased a lot in the minutes used to vote,” said Julio Rivera, INE liaison in San José.
A Volunteer who was inside the consulate all day as a secretary said that the main obstacle was that the digital ballot boxes were obsolete.
“It was very frustrating, there were people who sat there for 30 minutes waiting for their vote, people who voted 3 or 4 times because in the end when they were asked to submit the vote they were disconnected or the signal went out, it’s sad, but there were more who “They didn’t vote more than those who voted,” said Perla Aldama, a volunteer.
The altercation in front of the consulate lasted approximately an hour, although there was a police presence, they did not intervene since the situation did not escalate, the Mexicans without voting left frustrated
“Well, we are sad and upset, but there is also satisfaction because this reflects that people are very politicized, people are aware that voting is very important,” said Cesar.
The situation that occurred here in San José also occurred throughout the United States; this was the first time in history that Mexicans living abroad could go in person to exercise their right to vote.
It is important to emphasize that there were two types of voters, those who had not registered and those who did register on time.
