Voters waited in line for hours at Chicago’s Mexican Consulate over the weekend, hoping to cast a ballot in Mexico’s election — and while many played a role in helping to make history, others still weren’t able to get in. Lisa Chavarria reports.
NOTA: Para más información en español sobre la cobertura de las elecciones de México en Chicago puede ir a este enlace de Telemundo Chicago.
Voters waited in line for hours at Chicago's Mexican Consulate over the weekend, hoping to cast a ballot in Mexico's election -- and while many played a role in helping to make history, others still weren't able to get in.
Mexico’s projected presidential winner Claudia Sheinbaum will become the first woman president in the country's 200-year history.
“I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said with a smile, speaking at a downtown hotel shortly after electoral authorities announced a statistical sample showed she held an irreversible lead. “I don't make it alone. We've all made it, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”
“We have demonstrated that Mexico is a democratic country with peaceful elections,” she said.
The National Electoral Institute’s president said Sheinbaum had between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to a statistical sample. Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez had between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote and Jorge Álvarez Máynez had between 9.9% and 10.8% of the vote. Sheinbaum's Morena party was also projected to hold majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Nearly 100 million people were registered to vote and turnout appeared to be about 60%, similar to earlier elections.
For the first time, Mexican citizens living outside the country were able to cast their presidential election ballots in-person at consulates.
Thousands of Mexican nationals lined up in Chicago to vote in the now-historic election.
According to reports from the scene, authorities in Chicago were forced to close down Ashland Avenue heading south due to the large number of people in line.
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But with only nine booths inside to accommodate the thousands of voters outside, desperation and frustration grew quickly due to the endless wait.
Some said they were in line for seven hours and still weren't able to cast their ballots.
“We came here at one pm and we been waiting in line, next to a lot of people and it turns out that they didn’t let them vote," one voter told Telemundo Chicago in Spanish.
“I was in the line for seven hours and at 7:30 p.m. they closed the Consulate and they didn’t allow us to vote," another said.
Exactly how many voters managed to cast their ballots in Chicago weren't immediately clear, but numbers were expected to be released Monday.
Voters were also electing governors in nine of the country’s 32 states, and choosing candidates for both houses of Congress, thousands of mayorships and other local posts, in the biggest elections the nation has seen and ones that have been marked by violence.
The fact that the two leading candidates were women had left little doubt that Mexico would make history Sunday. Sheinbaum will also be the first person from a Jewish background to lead the overwhelmingly Catholic country.
She will start her six-year term Oct. 1. Mexico’s constitution does not allow reelection.
The leftist has said she believes the government has a strong role to play in addressing economic inequality and providing a sturdy social safety net, much like her political mentor President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
