Breathe
By Barbara Anderson
One hundred thousand Mexicans with disabilities did not vote on June 2.
In total, only 207,686 people with disabilities cast their vote in the presidential elections (in the June 2021 elections there were 308,509).
Statistically, every year there are more people with disabilities in the country and there were more polling places available in these elections versus those of 2020/2021: 170,181 versus 162,570.
What happened then?
Why did the suffrage of this minority fall by more than 33%?
According to INE's most recent report on the electoral process we are going through this year, 21.4% of the electoral roll has a disability -much higher than the data from the 2020 Census and the 2023 update- which means that there are 17,860,855 men and women with some kind of disability.
According to the same report, only 0.21% of the Mexican population with disabilities cast their vote: 207,686 people.
Playing with the numbers, we can see that only a little more than 1% of the pcd over 18 years of age went to the polls to elect no more and no less than president.
In all 32 states of the Mexican Republic, the number of voters fell, except in three: Baja California with 199 extra votes from pcd, Baja California Sur (+884) and Hidalgo (+104).
In all the others, the drop was abrupt, with Campeche being the state where the least number of CDPs voted, with only 428 votes.
Mexico City was the place with the most pcd votes (35,369) but still about 3 thousand less voters in 2024 versus 2021. Many more pcd votes were lost in the State of Mexico where 6,000 did not go to the polls.
Women with disabilities are the most engaged within the small number of voters: three years ago they represented 52% of the voters while this year they were 55%.
If we compare the INE reports of both processes, we can see an advance: there was less need for the support of a trusted person to vote and more support from polling place officials, and the use of the special partition increased.
We can deduce that the infrastructure has improved and training has improved, what is lacking are voters.
Undoubtedly, there is still a lack of promotion of accessible voting, of inclusive materials for the calls for elections, of work on the part of the political parties to not only make millionaire propaganda campaigns but to use funds to promote the participation of all.
If there are 17.9 million Mexicans with disabilities over 18 years of age and only a little more than 200 thousand vote, the invisibility of a portion of the population continues to be perpetuated, which costs the parties and governments of the day a great deal of money.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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