Note: For more information in Spanish about Mexico's election coverage in Chicago, embed it at Telemundo Chicago.
Voters waited in line for hours at the Mexican Consulate in Chicago over the weekend, hoping to cast a ballot in Mexico's elections — and while many played a role in helping make history, others still couldn't get in.
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's expected presidential winner, will become the first female president in the country's 200-year history.
“I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” a smiling Sheinbaum said, speaking at a downtown hotel, shortly after electoral authorities announced that a statistical sample showed her irreversibly ahead. “I am not doing this alone. We have all succeeded in achieving this, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our mothers, daughters and granddaughters.”
“We have proven that Mexico is a democracy with peaceful elections,” she said.
The head of the National Electoral Institute said that Sheinbaum received between 58.3% and 60.7% of the votes, according to a statistical sample. Opposition candidate Xochitl Gálvez received between 26.6% and 28.6% of the votes, while Jorge Álvarez Mainz received between 9.9% and 10.8% of the votes. Sheinbaum's Morena party is also expected to gain a majority in both chambers of Congress.
Nearly 100 million people have registered to vote, and participation appears to have been around 60%, similar to previous elections.
For the first time, Mexican citizens living outside the country were able to cast their votes in presidential elections in person at consulates.
Thousands of Mexican citizens lined up in Chicago to cast their ballots in the now historic election.
According to reports from the scene, authorities in Chicago had to close southbound Ashland Avenue due to the large number of people in line.
But with only nine booths inside to accommodate the thousands of voters outside, despair and frustration quickly grew over the endless wait.
Some said they had been in line for seven hours and were still unable to cast their votes.
“We came here at one o’clock in the afternoon and we were waiting in line next to a lot of people, and it turns out they didn’t let them vote,” one voter told Telemundo Chicago in Spanish.
Another said: “I stayed in line for seven hours, and at 7:30 pm they closed the consulate and did not allow us to vote.”
It was not immediately clear how many voters were able to cast ballots in Chicago, but numbers are expected to be released Monday.
Voters also elect governors in nine of the country's 32 states, and choose candidates for both chambers of Congress, and thousands of mayors and other local offices, in the largest and most violent election the country has ever seen.
The fact that the two main candidates were women left no doubt that Mexico would make history on Sunday. Sheinbaum will also be the first person from a Jewish background to lead the majority-Catholic country.
Her six-year term will begin on October 1. The Mexican Constitution does not allow her to be re-elected.
The leftist said she believes the government has a strong role to play in addressing economic inequality and providing a strong social safety net, like her political mentor President Andres Manuel López Obrador.
