Thousands of ballots stolen ahead of Mexico's national election

Mexico's National Electoral Institute (INE) announced on May 28 that more than 2,000 election ballots were stolen in the city of Puebla, Central Mexico, in the early morning of the same day.

This is an unprecedented incident and could affect the results of the general election scheduled to take place on June 2.

A VNA reporter in Mexico quoted an announcement from INE on the same day saying that the suspects stole a 4-seat Nissan car carrying 2,085 tickets while the car was parked in the center of Puebla city in the state of the same name.

These are the ballots that will be used to elect positions in the Puebla state government, including Governor and other key leadership positions.

Immediately after the incident, INE reported the incident to the National Prosecution Service and local police, and requested these agencies to urgently conduct an investigation and track down the perpetrators to retrieve the ballots, avoiding affecting the results of the general election scheduled to take place at the end of the week.

It is not yet clear whether the motive for the incident was car theft or ballot theft, but representatives of the coalitions and political parties have commented that even though the ballots have been numbered, if they are not collected in time, it could still affect the results of the general election.

As planned, on June 2, Mexico will hold a general election to elect the President, 500 members of the House of Representatives, 128 members of the Senate and nearly 20,000 local leadership positions.

On election day, more than 170,000 ballot boxes will be deployed nationwide. This is the first time that central and local elections will take place simultaneously in all 32 states in the country at the same time.

INE predicts that the upcoming general election will attract a record number of 98.6 million voters, an increase of 11% compared to the 90.8 million voters in the 2018 general election.