In Guanajuato, turnout in the judicial election was 5%.

GUANAJUATO, Gto., (apro) .- The president of the local council of the National Electoral Institute (INE) in Guanajuato, Jaime Juárez Jasso, revealed that participation in the judicial election in the state reached 5% of the nominal register, which is made up of just over 4.9 million citizens.

Announcing the receipt of the packages from the 3,929 polling stations set up in the state, Juárez Jasso acknowledged that Guanajuato did not even reach half of the national average, as announced Sunday night by Guadalupe Taddei Zavala, president of the INE (National Institute of Statistics and Census), although, she said, there may still be a slight variation in the percentage.

He discussed the factors that may have led to the low turnout, although he noted that a more detailed analysis will be needed to identify the possible causes.

"The reasons for non-participation are multifactorial: it includes everything from the weather, which was raining, and people saying they didn't want to get wet. There's also widespread apathy, when people say they don't want to vote. There's also the fact that there were organizations that openly called for people not to vote."

Protests took place in three municipalities of Guanajuato: León, Celaya, and San Miguel de Allende, to demonstrate their opposition to the judicial election. The largest protest was in León, with no more than 300 people in attendance.

Another factor that, according to Jaime Juárez Jasso, may have influenced the low turnout is the lack of awareness of the profiles of those applying for positions in the Federal Judicial Branch.

"Citizens could consult the information on the INE website, so if you don't do that, you're flying blind, so it's better not to go there."

The president of the local INE Council in Guanajuato compared participation with the 2022 recall referendum, promoted by then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The average participation at the federal level was 17 percent, while in Guanajuato it reached 9.5 percent, which shows that, in that state, citizens have less participation than in other entities in the country.

Jaime Juárez noted that the type of campaigns that allowed candidates to run for office in the Federal Judicial Branch warrant a particular analysis.

"The campaigns were carried out practically on social media. Due to the rules of the game, they weren't allowed to paint walls, buy billboards, or advertise on radio or television, except for making flyers on biodegradable paper... It's worth analyzing that there is advertising in the parties' campaigns, even in news programs."

Juárez Jasso mentioned that institutions responsible for promoting citizen participation, such as the INE, need to increase awareness among the population that there will now be elections to select those who will serve on the three branches of government: the Legislative, the Executive, and now the Judicial.