Is vote transfer possible in Mexico?

On social media, several rumors about the alleged transfer of votes from one presidential candidate to another are being spread.

But can a candidate legally transfer their votes to another? What do Mexican laws say about this scenario? Verficado 2018 explains it.

As such, the concept of “vote transfer” doesn't exist within the Electoral Laws but it has already occurred in practice: during the 2000 election, candidate Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, of the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution (PARM) transferred his votes in favor of the candidate of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), Vicente Fox Quesada.

According to Verificado 2018, an initiative of which EL UNIVERSAL is a member of, when a candidate transfers their votes to another, what they are doing, in fact, is renouncing to the electoral contest but this doesn't constitute a legal alliance with the party or coalition with the party the resigning candidate is now supporting. Pursuant to the Law, the deadline for the registration of coalitions was December 14, 2017. After this day, there is no possibility of adding or changing the parties of a coalition.

Of coalitions and alliances

What is admissible, however, pursuant to section 241 of the General Law on Electoral Institutions and Procedures, is for a candidate to resign before June 1, 2018 – 30 calendar days prior to the election – and for the political party or coalition which nominated them to register another individual and guarantee that this new candidate appears in the ballot.

If no other candidate is registered or the resignation is done at a later date, the name of the candidate who resigned will appear in the ballot but any votes cast for them will be considered spoilt (null).

There is no case scenario in our current laws in which a candidate's resignation implies that the votes obtained by the resigning candidate will be transferred to another, similarly as how it isn't also possible to transfer public funds granted for campaign purposes.

According to Paula Sofía Vásquez , expert on election strategies, vote transfer is only a media tactic, not an automatic transfer of votes. “It cannot be expected that all people supporting the resigning candidate will vote for the other candidate the first one decided to support.”

Some cases of candidate resignations in our country are the following:

-Nuevo León: Fernando Elizondo, running for Governor of Nuevo León, resigned and supported independent candidate Jaime Rodríguez (El Bronco) . Elizondo served as the executive coordination of Public Administration of Nuevo León until April 2017.

-State of Mexico: Óscar González Yañez, running for Governor of the State of Mexico in 2015 with the far-left Labor Party (PT), resigned and supported the candidate of the left National Regeneration Party (MORENA), Delfina Gómez .

-Michoacán: Gerardo Dueñas Bedolla, the candidate of the Humanist Party running for Governor of Michoacán, resigned in 2015 in favor of Silvano Aureoles , of the left Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).

-Sonora: The candidate of the conservative Social Encounter Party (PES) Manuel de Jesús Baldenebro, running for Governor of Sonora, resigned in favor of the candidate of the alliance PRI-PVEM, Claudia Pavlovich.

-Presidential Election 2000: Candidate of the Authentic Party of the Mexican Revolution, Porfirio Muñóz Ledo resigned in favor of Vicente Fox Quesada of the conservative National Action Party (PAN).

-Presidential Election 1988: The candidate of the Socialist Mexican Party, Heberto Castillo, resigned and supported the candidate of the National Democratic Front, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas .

Voter turnout in Mexico

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