Introduction
The upcoming 2027 elections are set to be the largest in our history, with a vast number of positions and resources required. The complexity of the 2025 judicial elections, marked by numerous positions, tight organization timelines, ballot design, and an extraordinary volume of printed materials, serves as a logistical challenge. The 2027 elections will be even more imposing, with federal positions including all 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies and half of the federal judicial power’s positions (464 circuit magistrates and 386 district judges). Sixteen state governorships will also renew their leaders: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Chihuahua, Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tlaxcala, and Zacatecas. Additionally, local congress elections will take place in most states, except Coahuila, along with over 650 municipal and other judicial power elections.
The Need for Digital Voting
Given the extraordinary scale of the 2027 elections, it’s crucial to reconsider whether traditional voting methods are sufficient. Digital voting emerges as a viable alternative, offering proven efficiency and significant time and cost savings. It also simplifies the voting process and encourages greater citizen participation.
A valuable reference is India’s digital voting model, a democracy with over 950 million voters. Their experience is relevant due to their ability to manage a massive electorate distributed across diverse settings, including overpopulated cities, remote rural communities, and hard-to-reach areas. If a country with nearly ten times Mexico’s voter population can successfully adopt digital voting technology, it is reasonable to consider implementing electronic voting machines.
These devices, designed as digital interfaces for casting multiple votes, can be functional, intuitive, and provide robust safeguards against potential fraud. Their design requires minimal infrastructure, making installation in suitable and accessible locations for voters feasible.
In the future, this approach could pave the way for an official mobile application enabling voting from personal devices.
Benefits of Digital Voting
- Resource Optimization: Automating vote counting and tallying reduces human resource requirements.
- Ecological Benefits: Adopting technological solutions minimizes the environmental impact associated with large-scale, complex, competitive, and multitudinous elections.
- Maintaining Fundamental Principles: Digital voting ensures security, certainty, transparency, reliability, and swift results without compromising core legal principles.
Conclusion
Digital voting presents a promising solution for the 2027 elections, offering efficiency, cost savings, and increased citizen participation. India’s successful implementation of electronic voting machines serves as a valuable model for Mexico to consider, ensuring secure, transparent, and accessible elections.
