Fabiola Martinez
La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday, December 11, 2025, p. 8
The National Electoral Institute (INE) awarded Cosmocolor, associated with the public company Talleres Graphicos de México (TGM) and Icards Solutions, the contract to produce up to 94.1 million voting credentials, which will be manufactured for five years, starting in the second half of 2026.
Cosmocolor, founded by Jorge Khawagi, would have transmitted the majority shareholding to his son of the same name, former boxer and former federal deputy of the Green Party. For several decades, the company has signed contracts with governments to develop driver’s licenses, circulation cards and services related to biometric data, as well as associated technical support.
Meanwhile, TGM is already working with the INE. The most recent contract was for the printing of more than 600 million ballots for the judicial election in June of this year.
The tender to produce voting credentials is the most expensive of all those issued by the INE, just below the rental of vehicles, whose contract (for just over a billion pesos) was investigated by the Internal Control Body, upon detecting overpricing in the period 2019-2022.
Complaints about “fixes”
The process was not free of doubts, formally expressed by some contestants, by explicitly mentioning alleged previous arrangements in favor of Cosmocolor, as read in the doubt clarification stage.
Yesterday, after the ruling, the INE said that “all companies were verified in the sanctioned supplier systems, without finding any impediment to participating.”
He highlighted that the process had a social witness and that the award “ensures production with high standards of safety, quality and innovation at acceptable and verified prices.”
Litho Formas was left on the way, disqualified for not complying with technical aspects. This company, which has already received contracts in the sector, especially from state electoral institutes, signed up with six allies (Indra Sistemas Mexico, Toppan Security, Inetum España, Inteum México, Latin ID and Soluciones Tecnológica), and presented an offer for 54.2 million dollars. Cosmocolor proposed 55.6 million, but below the current concessionaire, Veridos México (associated with Giesecke and Derivent de México, as well as Gráficas Corona), which budgeted 59.9 million dollars.
The point system was used again. For the technical criteria, Cosmocolor obtained 57.18, Veridos 45.69 and Litho Formas, as stated, was disqualified. In the economic evaluation, the first reached 40 points and the second, 37.14.
Therefore, the ruling was based on 97.18 points for Cosmocolor and 82.83 for Veridos.
The contract marks for the beginning (June-December of next year) an estimated production of between 9.6 and 10.7 million credentials; In the following periods, full years, the requirement will reach 20.3 million units.
In this ruling, the “envelope” service was also awarded for identifications processed abroad, with estimates of one to 1.3 million pieces in the period 2026-2031, with a unit price of 0.39 US cents, before VAT.
The production of each credential is calculated at 0.65 cents, plus all expenses associated with free and unlimited delivery to the voter. If you change your address, lose or misuse the document, you can go to the INE modules as many times as necessary and you will always obtain it free of charge.
Since the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute and due to the growth of the registry, this contract has been increasing. For example, in August 1992, the unit cost of the credential was estimated at $18; Then there was a center with a production capacity of 40 thousand per day.
With the contract started in 2019, the unit cost is 0.75 cents; There is a high availability production center that can produce 90 thousand daily and, in addition, a mobile application for QR validation, plus a process of destruction and final disposal of waste material.
Currently the electoral registry has data on 102.1 million citizens.
