• On Sunday, July 2nd 2006, Mexicans will elect a new President for the term 2006-2012. According to the Mexican Constitution, presidential re-election is not allowed.
• Mexicans will also elect new members of Congress:
  • 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies (300 by the first-past-the-post system and 200 by proportional representation) to serve three-year terms.
  • 128 Senators (64 seats by first-past-the-post, 32 seats given to the first minority and 32 seats by proportional representation from national party lists) to serve six-year terms.
• Ten local elections will also be held on the same day, particularly Mexico City's mayoral election as well as gubernatorial elections in several states.

• Different agencies are in charge of organizing federal and local elections. At the federal level, the responsible institution is the Federal Electoral Institute (Instituto Federal Electoral -IFE).
• Each of the 31 states, as well as the Federal District, have an independent local electoral authority, which organize gubernatorial, mayoral and local legislators elections. These local electoral institutes are independent from the IFE. Most states have an electoral calendar different from the federal one.
• The IFE is an independent agency. Since 1996, the IFE has full autonomy and its direction and administration is a responsibility held by non-partisan citizens appointed as Counselors by the Chamber of Deputies.
• The IFE has been ranked as one of the institutions with the highest level of public confidence in Mexico by different polls.
• The IFE is also one of the most respected electoral bodies in the world. It has provided assistance to other countries on technical aspects of the organization of elections such as electoral document production, voter identification systems and electoral rolls.
• Countries receiving IFE's assistance during the last two years include Iraq, Haiti, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Algeria, Morocco, Zambia and Guatemala.

• Elections are carried out by a permanent body of public officers which integrate the IFE structure. The total amount of public officers approximates to 13,000, of which 2,400 belong to a specialized civil service structure called "Electoral Professional Service" (Servicio Profesional Electoral).
• The professionalism and accumulated experience of the SPE enhances the transparency and accountability in every area of electoral organization.
• The IFE maintains and updates a permanent Electoral Roll, which complies with high standards of quality, coverage and accuracy.
• 94.5% of all Mexican citizens who are eligible to vote are registered.
• 91.9% have a voter ID-card.
• The Mexican voter ID-card is now regarded as one of the safest and most reliable voter identification systems in the world.
• Besides the voter ID-card, there are a number of measures that ensure free and fair elections in Mexico.
• Electoral ballots are produced state-of-the-art counterfeit measures.
• The IFE will produce almost 221 million ballots for the Presidential, Federal Deputies and Senator's elections.
• The IFE also produces more than 300,000 transparent ballot boxes.
• Besides these measures, the IFE applies a special ink mark in every voter's thumb to prevent duplicate voting.
• This special ink is produced in Mexico and has been exported to other countries.

- The registered national political parties are : Partido Acción Nacional, PAN Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI

Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD Partido del Trabajo, PT

* The order of mention of the political parties is related to their registration date.

Partido Verde Ecologista de México, PVEM Convergencia, C Partido Nueva Alianza, PANAL Alternativa Sociodemócrata y Campesina, ASDC

• For the July 2nd election, two coalitions nominating common candidates were formed: "Alianza por México" (PRI and PVEM), and the one called "Por el bien de todos" (PRD, PT and C).
• Political parties must obtain at least 2% of the national voting issued either in the Presidential, the Senate or the Deputies elections in order to remain registered.

Political Party/Coalition	Candidate	Logo
Partido Acción Nacional(PAN)	Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
Alianza por México (PRI and PVEM)	Roberto Madrazo Pintado
Por el bien de todos (PRD, PT and C)	Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Partido Nueva Alianza (PANAL)	Roberto Campa Cifrián
Alternativa Socialdemócrata y Campesina	Patricia Mercado

• The federal electoral process starts with a session carried out in the IFE's General Council during the first week of October of the year preceding the election.
  
  
  
• The preparatory stage of the current federal election started with a session carried out by the General Council on October 6, 2005 and will conclude on the morning of Sunday July 2, 2006 (Election Day).

• The second stage is Election Day, which is invariably held on the first Sunday of July. It begins at 8:00 am and finishes with the closing of the polling sites installed for the reception and initial count of the votes.
• At 6:00 pm, polling stations will close. Ballot boxes will be opened and citizens acting as electoral officials will count the votes, before party representatives and electoral observers.
• Results are obtained and the validation of elections is issued on the third stage. It begins with the remittance of electoral documents from the polling sites to the district IFE offices and finishes with the counting of votes and the certification of the results, carried out by the executive bodies of the IFE, or if the need arises, by the resolutions issued by the Electoral Court. In any case, this stage ends in August.
• The fourth and last stage comprises the report and declarations of validity of the election and the elected president. It begins at the moment in which the Electoral Court resolves the last challenge brought against the presidential election or when there is formal evidence that there were any, and ends when Electoral Court approves the report that contains the final counting and the declarations of validity of the election and president elect. In any case, this last stage of the electoral process must conclude on September 6th.

• July 2nd, 2006 is Election Day in Mexico. At 8:00 am, around 913,000 randomly-selected and trained citizens are ready to mobilize nationwide and open more than 130,500 polling stations distributed in 300 electoral districts. In the next 10 hours, a potential universe of around 72 million Mexican citizens will be able to cast a free and individual vote.
• At 6:00 p.m. polling stations will close and citizen polling officials will start counting votes. IFE's personnel will send the results to the IFE's headquarters in Mexico City.
• Two mechanisms operating in real time (PREP and quick count) will begin processing electoral information:
• Results will be electronically sent to a central mainframe running the Preliminary Electoral Results Program ("PREP" in Spanish). By the early hours of July 3rd, the PREP will have accumulated a high percentage of polling stations results. From the moment the PREP begins operations, the public will be able to access it via Internet from anywhere in the world.
• The IFE will also execute a quick count program, based on a sample of more than 7,600 polling stations. This statistical exercise, as well as the size of the sample, may allow that by 11:00 p.m. of Election Day, the IFE may be able to announce electoral trends.

• Yes. Appeals must be filed within the first four days following the day in which the counting of the election has finished.
• The Federal Electoral Court resolves appeals regarding the presidential election, whereas its regional branches solve appeals regarding the election of deputies and senators, according to their location. All appeals regarding the election of deputies and senators must be resolved by August 3rd, and those regarding the presidential election by August 31.

II. What is new in the 2006 Election?

1. What steps has the IFE taken to enhace the transparency and fairness of the election?

The IFE has taken important measures to reinforce the existing legal framework and enhance the transparency and fairness of the electoral process:

- New rules of financial disclosure:

• The IFE has requested parties to disclose partial financial statements during the campaign period.
  • With the previous rules, parties would have disclosed this information months after the election.
  • The IFE is making this information public. This allows transparency and disclosure to act as deterrents for il legal behavior.

- Banning government´s advertising:

• 40 days before Election Day, all government advertising on TV and radio will be suspended to promote a more leveled playing field.

- Media monitoring:

• The IFE monitors the major media in Mexico and keeps track of every ad transmitted on radio and television.
• This monitoring allows for the oversight of political parties´expenditures, ensuring that no party is spending beyond the legal limits.
• Media advertisements account for 60% to 70% of campaign expenditures in Mexico.

- Newscast monitoring:

• The IFE also tracks the major TV and radio newscasts transmitted both by national and local stations.
  • The IFE has no regulatory power regarding media content, but it can inform the public about the treatment that each candidate and party gets.
  • We measure the time allocatedto each party or candidate in the news, and determine whether the news coverage meets objetivity criteria.
  • Results that have indicated that parties and candidates are getting balanced news coverage by national TV and radio broadcasts.

• Yes. 54,780 voters living abroad sent in their applications to participate in the Presidential election, 40,854 of which fulfilled all the legal criteria to cast their vote via mail.
• The IFE created the Electoral Roll of Voters Living Abroad. Entries to this new list were automatically deleted from the regular National Electoral Roll in order to prevent duplicate votes.
• The IFE has mailed to the registered applicants an envelope containing a special ballot, as well as the instructions on how to cast their vote and send it back to Mexico.
• To ensure voter confidentiality, the return envelope will not contain the name of the voter, but rather his or her voter ID card number (in a bar code format). Envelopes with marked ballots will be accepted by the IFE in Mexico until July 1st, 2006.
  
  
• At 6:00 pm on Election Day, the envelopes will be opened and votes will be counted in special polling stations.

III. Other Topics

1. How does the funding regime work?

• In Mexico, political parties are mostly publicly-funded. Public funding must prevail over private financing sources which the law allows and regulates.
• The law establishes three different concepts in order togrant public funding, and specific procedures for theirallocation by the IFE:
  
  
  
  • Funding for permanent ordinary activities. This amount is determined once a year according to a formula stated by the law, considering, among other features, the estimated cost of a Presidential, a Senatorial and a Deputy campaign. 30% is equally distributed among all the parties with parliamentary representation, the remaining 70% is distributed according to the amount of votes obtained in the preceding Lower Chamber member election.
  • Funding for campaings expenses. It is only allocated during the election year. Its amount and distribution the same as the funds for permanent ordinary activities.
• Specific activities. Parties also receive funding for activities such as political education and training, socioeconomic and political research, and publishing.
• The law also considers special criteria to allocate public funding to new parties.
• Federal, State or Municipal Governments, public agencies, any foreign party, churches or religious groups, and private firms, either Mexican or foreign, are banned from contributing to political campaigns.
• There are also limits to individual contributions.

• As a result of a number of electoral reforms that were passed throughout the 1990's, free and fair elections are now the norm in Mexico.
• Citizens are directly involved in the organization and oversight of elections:
  
  
  
  • Citizens receive and count the votes. The electoral law mandates the IFE to randomly select and train citizens to act as polling officials on Election Day. Between March and June 2006, the IFE carried out the procedure to randomly select and train the 913,000 citizens who will be ready to operate more than 130,500 polling stations on July 2nd.
  • Citizens are in charge of the election. 1,992 nonpartisan citizens oversee the electoral process as members of electoral councils in all the country. There are 32 state-level and 300 district-level electoral councils which serve both as decision-making and oversight bodies from October 2005 to August 2006.
• Citizens can act as electoral observers during the preparation of the elections and on Election Day. In order to promote electoral observation, the United Nations manages a fund to support local NGO's involvement as electoral observers. The IFE has also signed agreements with civil society organizations to promote citizen participation.
• Political parties oversee every aspect of the organization of elections. They have permanent representatives before the General Council of the IFE and before every electoral council in the country.
• Political parties can also appoint representatives to each polling station on Election Day.
• Foreign nationals are welcome to come to Mexico and observe the electoral process. The deadline to apply as a foreign visitor is June 21st.

This document contains the most significant information and data about the organization of the 2006 Mexican election. Specifically, this document explains key aspects of the election such as the Electoral Roll, polling stations, the production of electoral documents and materials, the Neutrality Agreement, the prompt production and transmission of electoral results, the monitoring of political advertising and newscasts, the transparency on party financing during the campaign, as well as the role of the electoral observers and foreign visitors.

• The Electoral Roll is one of the foundations of public confidence in the electoral system in Mexico.
• 71.7 million citizens form the Electoral Roll, equivalent to 95.4 per cent of the Mexican population older than 18 years.
  
  
• There are 71.3 million citizens registered to vote with a valid voting ID-card with a photograph.
• Almost 13 million of Mexicans will be able to vote for the first time in a Presidential election.
• The IFE conducted a National Verification of the Electoral Roll, with two important findings. First, the Electoral Roll has the highest coverage in its history (95.4 per cent).

Second, the levels of coverage and updating assure that the Electoral Roll is a reliable instrument for the 2006 elections.

*Latest available data from June 2006 **Results from the 2006 National Verification Sampling

II. POLLING STATIONS AND CITIZEN POLLING OFFICIALS

• In Mexico, the reception and counting of the votes is made directly by citizens.
• On July 2nd more than 130,500 polling stations will be installed throughout the country.
• Each Electoral Poll requires 7 polling officials: 1 President, 1 Secretary, 2 Vote counters and 3 Substitutes.
• More than 913,000 citizens will be ready to act as polling officials on July 2nd.
• On March 6th, 7,293,255 citizens were pre-selected randomly to act as polling officials.
• 4,847,896 citizens were notified and 2,266,514 were trained in a first stage that ended on April 30

• The notification and training was possible thanks to the great effort of 27,171 IFE's electoral trainers and supervisors.
• From the total amount of trained citizens, 2,135,691 were considered apt to perform as polling officials. They will be the ones receiving and counting the votes on Election Day.
• Apt citizens are those that were trained and fulfill the following legal criteria:
  • Mexican citizen by birth without acquiring another nationality and be resident of the electoral section that belongs to his/her Polling station.
  • Registered in the Federal Electoral Roll;
  • Have a valid voter ID-card;
  • Have full political rights (for instance, not being in prison or under criminal trial);
  • Have an honest way of life;
  • Took the electoral training course given by the corresponding IFE District-level Office;
  • High asd medium level public officials and people who has any leadership position in a political party are not eligible.
    
    
• Know how to read and write and being less than 70 years old on Election Day.

- From the 2,135,691 apt citizens, 913,000 were selected on a second draw on May 8.

• Lists were made of the suitable citizens in alpha-betical order for each of the electoral sections. Afterwards,depen ding on the amount of polling stations on each electoral section, the first citizens from the list were chosen as polling officials (for example, if an electoral section has 3 polling stations, then 21 citizens were chosen, 7 per polling station).
• Once the polling officials are chosen amongst citizens, a new list is made with the selected persons and ordered according to their school grade. People with the highest school grade will perform as Presidents, the next ones in school grade as Secretaries, and so on until the substitutes.

III. ELECTORAL DOCUMENTS AND MATERIALS

• The electoral materials are another source of confidence on Mexican elections.
• 220.7 million ballots with state-of-the-art vote counterfeit measures were printed.
• Among the security measures we have:
  
  
  • Water marks with the IFE logo;
  • Visible optic fibers;
  • Hidden optic fibers only visible with ultraviolet light;
  • Water mark screen with the national coat of arms (on the front);
  • Water mark screen with the national coat of arms (on the back); and
  • Micro impression and latent image.

* 92,389 screens will be used from those made from the 2002-2003 elections.
** 93,197 ballot boxes will be used from those made for the 2002-2003 elections from Federal Deputies.

- On May 30th began the transportation of the electoral materials to the 300 districts throughout the country, under military custody. Materials will be then sent to the polling station presidents from June 26th to the 30th.

IV. NEUTRALITY AGREEMENT

• Before 1996, elections were organized by the Federal Government. This was often seen as a source of bias in the electoral process.
• Today, elections are carried out by the IFE, which is an independent, non-partisan agency. The law strictly prohibits parties from accepting any kind of material or financial support from governments or public officials.
• However, any sign of political support from high-rank public servants to political parties and candidates during the electoral process is still a very sensitive issue.
• Consequently, the IFE has enacted special rules to ensure that public servants maintain a neutral position during the campaigns for two reasons:
  
  
  
  • First, to protect the right of the voters to a free vote, without any undue external influence or pressure;
  • Second, to prevent political parties or candidates from obtaining any unfair advantages while receiving support from public servants.

- Who must abide by the rules of the Neutrality Agreement of the IFE?

• The President
  
  
  
  • The President
  • The 31 State Governors
  • The Leader of the Federal District's Government
  • All Municipal Presidents
  • The 16 Delegation Leaders of the Federal District

- What do these rules of neutrality prohibit?

• 40 days before Election Day, the President, the Governors and all municipal presidents cannot have media campaigns publicizing their programs or government accomplishments. However, public works can be delivered and inaugurated. Press coverage of official events does not infringe the Agreement. It is not necessary to remove billboards or signs, as long as they were placed before May 23rd.
• The President, Governors and Municipal Presidents cannot engage in media campaigns aimed to increase voter turnout.
• They cannot attend any campaign or party event on weekdays.
  
  
  • They cannot emit expressions in favor of a candidate in:

• Speeches
• The media
• Paid publicity

V. TIMELY AND RELIABLE ELECTORAL RESULTS

• There are two instruments that work to provide timely and truthful information about the voting tendencies on the night of July 2nd and through the following hours: The Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP in Spanish) and the "Quick count" program.
• Preliminary Electoral Results Program -- PREP
• After the polls have closed at 6:00 p.m. local time, cititizens will count the votes in each polling station.
  • Results will be electronically sent to a central mainframe running the Preliminary Electoral Results Program ("PREP" in Spanish).
• By the early hours of July 3rd, the PREP will have accumulated a high percentage of polling stations results.
• From the moment the PREP begins operations, will be able to access it via Internet from anywhere in the world.

- Quick count

• A quick count is a statistical exercise based on a representative sample of polling stations´actual results.
  • The sample for the 2006 quick count consists of 7,636 randomly-selected polling stations. This sample size ensures full statistical reliability.
  • IFE's personnel will transmit the actual results observed in each one of these 7,636 stations to the IFE's headquarters.
  • If results are readily available, and all technical conditions are met, it will be possible to estimate who the winner is.

- PREP and quick count

• The PREP and the quick count are comple- mentary exercises. The PREP concentrates the information of the total amount of the installed polling stations. Information starts flowing after the voting ends, during the night and throughout the next day. It is estimated that on Monday July 3, around 2:00 am, 50 per cent of the total amount of polls will be concentrated and their flow will continue in an uninterrupted manner.
• On the other hand, the quick count will show an estimate of the national vote because it is based on a sample of 7,636 representative polling stations from more than 130.500 that will be installed throughout the country. This result can be made public at late night, July 2nd,if the difference between the first and second place is higher than 1 percentage point and if the appropiate conditions defined by the Technical Committee are met.
• The quick count is carried out by IFE´s personnel, under the supervision of a special Technical Committee appointed by the General Counsel, and formed by five internationally-recognized scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM):
  
  
  • Dra. Guillermina Eslava
  • Actuario Miguel Cervera
  • Dr. Ignacio Méndez
  • Dr. Manuel Mendoza
  • Dr. Rubén Hernández Cid

- Differences between the quick count and Exit Polls

• On Election Day, some private companies carry out surveys known as ¨exit polls¨. These surveys collect the information about the votes emitted by selected voters outside some of the polls throughout the day.
• By law, the results of private exit polls can only be made public after 8:00 pm, Mexico City time, on Election Day. Anyone announcing exit polls results must establish that these are unofficial results, and that the only source for official data is the IFE.
• Since the information collected at the polls comes from the voters themselves (and thus it is not necessarily true) and since the y usually get a large amount of negative responses, the results of exit polls require an element of statistical interpretation, and this lack the statistical veracity contained in the quick count, which is based on actual results.

VI. MONITORING OF POLITICAL ADVERTISING

• As political competition increased in Mexico, so did the cost of campaigning for political parties. This has brought about new challenges regarding the IFE's ability to "follow the money" in two ways: the oversight of undue private contributions and the enforcement of the spending cap, which for the 2006 Presidential election was set on 62 million dollars.
• Since most of the campaign expenditures of political parties are devoted to the mass media, particularly radio and TV, the IFE tracks every spot aired on stations and networks nationwide.
• For the first time the IFE has made public the concentrated results about the monitoring of the radio and television promotions, press releases and large billboards in the public roads that promote the federal candidates during the 2006 electoral campaigns.
  
  
  • The IFE tracks 1,391,166 hours of transmission in more than 200 television channels and in more than 300 radio stations.
  • 7,602 hours of transmission are processed daily and around 810,000 spots are detected every day.
• The monitoring began on January 19th and will conclude on July 2nd, 2006.
• The results are available to the general public through the IFE´s website.

Monitoring of promotional media for the candidates for the Presidency of the Republic^* (from January 19 to May 31, 2006)

* Further information can be found at the IFE´s website: http://www.ife.org.mx/portal/site/ife/menuitem.fe2c717227547ca77a52bd18100000f7/

VII. NEWCASTS MONITORING

• The IFE monitors the news treatment of the federal electoral campaigns in newscasts and other radio and television shows.
• The IFE has no regulatory power regarding media content, but it can inform the public about the treatment that each candidate and party gets.
• The IFE approved a methodology for monitoring the newscasts and other radio and television shows in 35 locations of the 32 States of the country.
• The monitoring will be made to 113 newscasts and 18 television shows, as well as 191 newscasts and 12 radio shows, for a total amount of 334 news spots.
• For this task, around 77,000 radio and TV broadcast hours will be recorded and analyzed.
• For example, from January 19 to May 31 2006 in all the monitored newscasts in the country, there were a total of 153,357 mentions of the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN in Spanish), Alianza por Mexico (APM in Spanish), Coalicion por el Bien de Todos (PBT in Spanish), Partido Alternativa Socialdemocrata y Campesina (PASC in Spanish), Nueva Alianza (NA in Spanish), Proceso Electoral Federal (PEF in Spanish), or one or two more from the above that were categorized as ¨various¨.
• In these 133 days there was an average of 1,153 daily mentions in the monitored newscasts around the country.
• 25 per cent of the 153,357 mentions were made on television (37,846), while the remaining 75 per cent was made on the radio (115,511).

Party share of the total amount of mentions on the monitored newcasts in the country (January 19 to May 31)

• The 153,357 mentions to parties and candidates in radio and TV newscasts between January 19 and March 31, equals to 16,183,948 seconds of transmisión (4,495 hours). This figure also includes mentions to the federal electoral process (PEF).
• In these 133 days, there were, as an average, 34 broadcast hours devoted to electoral and political issues.
• 18% of the total time corresponds to TV transmissions, and 82% to radio broadcasts.

Time allocated by radio and TV newcasts to political parties and electoral issues (January 19 to May 31)

• Of the 153,357 mentions, 93 per cent (142,189) were subject of a content evaluation to determine if they were positive, negative or neutral. These news bits are classified in the following genres: informative note, report, analysis, editorial or political critique.
• The remaining 7 per cent of the mentions (11,168) was not subject to a content evaluation as they were made in opinion programs like analysis roundtables, interviews, surveys and opinion studies, as well as political comedy and debate shows.

Percentage of mentions in opinion spots with respect to the total amount of mentions in all the monitored newcasts (January 19 to May 31)

The next genresare considered as opinion spots: Analysis roundtables, interviews, surveys and opinion studies, as welll as political comed and debate shows.

VIII.TRANSPARENCY ON CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURES

i. Special reports of expenditures applied to the electoral campaigns

• The IFE introduced new rules of financial accountability,
• requiring political parties to disclose more information about their campaign expenses during the very campaign period.
• Besides the legal sanctions in case of violation of these new rules, the IFE is also making this information public, thus allowing citizens to pass judgment on the legitimacy of their preferred party's or candidate's contributors and the amount of their expenses, as transparency and disclosure can act as a deterrent for illegal behavior.
• In the case of the presidential campaigns, on March 30 and May 30 political parties delivered the first reports about expenditures made by the political parties regarding the contracts made with the media and printing of propaganda (press, spots in movie theaters, large billboards and web advertisement). The next delivery is due on July 31st.
• In the case of campaigns the Federal Deputies and Senators, the reports will be delivered on June 15 and July 31st.
• With the previously existing rules, the IFE would have informed about the expenditures of the political parties until the first trimester of 2007.
• The complete reports are available at the IFE's webpage.

ii. Reports of expenditures on radio and TV ads

- These new rules of financial accountability also require the political parties to deliver detailed information about the contracts they made with radio and television to transmit their political publicity during the federal electoral process.

• The first report was delivered on July 15 and the next ones will be delivered on June 30 and July 31st.
• The IFE made some agreements with Televisa and the Radio and Television Industry Association, for media companies to disclose the information about the publicity hired by political parties and coalitions.
• The data obtained from this reports is available at the IFE's webpage.

IX. ELECTORAL OBSERVERS AND FOREIGN VISITORS

• Electoral observers and foreign visitors have strengthened public confidence on the electoral system, as they bear witness on the transparency of the organization of the election.
• The Federal Government gave $40 million pesos to support Mexican NGO's interested in acting as electoral observers. In order to ensure the transparent and non-partisan allocation of resources, the United Nations Development Program manages this fund.
• 26 Mexican civil organizations received resources from the fund. The maximum amount a single electoral observation project can get was set on $1.5 million pesos.
• For the 2006 election, the IFE invited national and international observers not to limit their observation activities to Election Day and to follow other phases of the electoral process.
• Some organizations are tracking aspects of the election, such as media campaigns, public spending and its electoral impact, among other issues.
• The European Union will send for the first time ever a large team of electoral observers.
• The deadline to register as an electoral observer ended on May 31st.
• The deadline to apply as a foreign visitor ended on June 21st.

Important Dates and times of the 2006 Mexican Election

Tuesday, May 23

- Starts banning of government media advertising, as stated by the Neutrality Agreement.

Thursday, May 25

- Declaration of validity of the Electoral Roll and the Voter list.

The Electoral Roll validity is approved with an amount of 71.7 million citizens, equivalent to 95.4 per cent of the Mexican population older than 18 years. The Voter list (composed by the registered citizens with a valid voter ID-card with picture) is approved with a total of 71.3 million citizens.

Political parties have the opportunity to verify the content of these two instruments and are able to propose any revision they consider suitable. Electoral law determines a deadline to make any changes and then both the Electoral Roll and the Voter list are legally declared as adequate for the election. On May 25th, the Electoral Roll and the Voter list were approved by the General Council of the IFE, with the agreement of all political parties. The Council declared the validity and definitiveness of both instruments.The Electoral Roll and the Voter list are valid and exact.

Tuesday, May 30

- Begins the distribution of electoral documents under military custody.

As of May 30th and until June 11th, the IFE will distribute the electoral documents and materials to the 300 electoral districts in the country under the custody of the Army and the Navy.

For this task the IFE will use 106 cargo vehicles that will transport more than 1,600 tons throughout nine different routes. Among other documents and materials, these convoys will carry ballots, Electoral Results Certificates and the indelible ink that will be used on July 2.

Wednesday, May 31

- Deadline to apply as electoral observers for national organizations.

Article 5 of the Electoral Code states that day as the deadline for Mexican citizens to apply as credited electoral observers.

Sunday, June 4

- First drill for the SIJE and the quick count program nationwide.

The Information System for the Election Day (SIJE in Spanish) will allow the IFE to learn about and report in time the installation of the polling stations, as well as the presence of the polling officials and representatives of the political parties.

To guarantee an optimum performance, as well as a proper quick count, the IFE will make two drills to analyze and, if needed correct possible troubles, like the adequate operation of the communication devises assigned to the 23,914 Electoral Trainers- Assistants.

- Nation-wide drill of the PREP.

In this day another drill takes place to test the efficiency of the electoral data transmission system and the operation of all the components for the Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP in Spanish).

Tuesday, June 6

- Second presidential debate

Sunday, June 18

- Second drill of the SIJE, Quick Count and PREP tests.

From the experience obtained in the first drill and the national PREP test already described (June 4), and all required adjustments made, on Sunday June 18 the second and last drill will take place for both the SIJE and the PREP test.

Monday, June 19

- The 2006 children election begins.

This day starts a practice organized by the IFE and the Public Education Ministry, where thousands of children and youngsters from schools in all over the country can vote to express their preferences about the practices and values that prevail in their schools.

The 2006 children election will be held in both public and private elementary and secondary schools.

Wednesday, June 21

- Deadline to apply as a foreign visitor.

Friday, June 23

- Last day for publication of electoral surveys.

In order to avoid any influence on the public about electoral preferences, the law forbids the publication of surveys eight days before Election Day, and until all the polling stations located in the time zones further to the west are closed (6:00 pm in Baja California and Sonora, and 8:00 pm in Mexico City).

Monday, June 26

- Start of the delivery of electoral documentation and materials to Polling station presidents .

As part of the last preparations for the Election Day, between June 26th and June 30th the 300 IFE's District Councils will distribute the electoral documents and materials to the citizens that will act as Presidents of around 130,500 polling stations.

Wednesday, June 28

- Last day for campaigning.

Article 190 of the Electoral Code states that three days before, and during Election Day, campaigning in all of its forms is prohibited.

Friday, June 30

- Conclusion of the delivery to the Polling station presidents of their electoral documentation and materials .

Saturday, July 1st

- Conclusion of the reception of mail containing the votes of Mexican voters living abroad.

Article 288 of the Electoral Code establishes that the votes received from abroad by the IFE up to 24 hours before the Election Day will be taken in consideration for the election.

Sunday, July 2nd; Election Day

08:00 am

• Around 130,500 polling stations will be installed throughout the country.
• More than 913,000 citizen polling officials will be ready to take their places as polling station presidents, secretaries or vote counters. They will take care of the election and will count the votes at the end of the day.

1:00 pm

- Report from IFE's Executive Secretary about the installation of the polling stations (as reported in the Information System regarding the developing of Election Day (SIJE)) as well as the developing events on Election Day.

6:00 pm

- Voting ends and vote counting and results calculation begins in the polling stations.

In the case of the polling stations located in the Mountain and the Pacific time zones (1 and 2 hours less in relation with the Central time respectively), the voting will end at 7:00 and 8:00 pm, Central Time.

07:00 pm

- As the electoral packages with the election results arrive to the District Councils, the data begins to flow in real time through the PREP.

08:00 pm

- The media will begin to show the results of exit polls and surveys made by private companies. Due to their methodology the quick counts of private companies will be revealed later on. Only IFE's results can be considered official.

11:00 pm

- The IFE makes public the results of its quick count from an unprecedented sample of 7,636 polling stations, as long as the difference between the first and the second place allows a safe estimation.

Monday, July 3rd

02:00 am

- Approximately at this hour, 50 percent of the results from the polling stations all over the country will be registered in the PREP. Results will continue to flow to the PREP in real time until next Wednesday.

Wednesday, July 5

08:00 am

- Vote counting starts in 300 district-level electoral councils. Citizens appointed as Electoral Counselors at the district level count the votes for the Presidential, Senate and Deputies elections. Political party representatives are also part of district councils and they can oversee vote counting.

08:00 to 8:30 pm

- Report from the IFE's Executive Secretary about the development in the district's calculation of the elections for the President, Senators and Federal Deputies elections.

Sunday, July 9

8:00 to 10:00 pm

- Report from the IFE's Executive Secretary about the results of the vote counting for the election of Senators and Federal Deputies under the principle of proportional representation.

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