Victor Ballinas
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday December 19, 2022, p. eleven
The electoral reform approved by the Congress of the Union, known as plan Bwill allow people in prison to vote in prisons where there are necessary security conditions, in accordance with the adaptation to article 284 Bis of the General Law of Electoral Institutions and Procedures (Legipe).
On this issue, the Belisario Domínguez Institute (IBD), of the Senate, refers in a study that in February 2019 the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF) resolved that people in pretrial detention have the right to vote and that this right must be guaranteed in the 2024 contest.
Pilot test
The IBD investigation, entitled Electoral voting models for people in pretrial detention: selected countriesprepared by the specialists Juan Manuel Rodríguez and Miguel Ángel Barrón, emphasizes that in the 2021 electoral process the INE applied a pilot test in five federal centers for social rehabilitation, in which a participation of 94.53 percent of private persons was achieved. of freedom.
This exercise, the IBD document specifies, was carried out in response to a ruling from the Superior Chamber of the TEPJF, in which it was resolved that people in preventive detention have the right to pay, for which reason the INE was ordered to carry out a pilot test , in order to guarantee said prerogative.
Derived from the INE pilot test, it was concluded that it is necessary to design coordination schemes with the authorities of the detention centers that allow the implementation of electoral procedures and generate conditions that strengthen the exercise of suffrage by prisoners.
At present, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Spain have some regulations from which this right is ensured.
The authors of the study state that the TEPJF ordered the INE to design and implement a test phase, in order to guarantee this right in the 2024 elections.
In addition, it established that this institute will identify whether the exercise of the right to vote will be applied only in presidential elections or in others, according to administrative and financial possibilities.
On February 3, 2021, the INE General Council, through Agreement INE/CG97/2021, approved the operation model for the pilot test of voting for people in pretrial detention for the 2020-2021 federal electoral process, in compliance with to said sentence.
