The package of electoral reforms, approved by the Congress of the Union at the end of 2022, will have an impact on the weakening of the central and decentralized structures of the National Electoral Institute (INE) and, significantly, in the National Electoral Professional Service (SPEN), which will lose 84.6% of its employees.
With the arguments of generating savings and austerity, and without previous analysis to confirm it (according to the claims of the INE, specialists and opposition parties), the reduction of key structures is ordered, which will result in the quality of the work of organizing elections.
Currently, most of the jobs are concentrated in the delegation and sub-delegation bodies. Through them, the Institute’s programs and activities are implemented on a national scale, both those that correspond to electoral processes, direct citizen participation processes, and those that correspond to permanent activities.
The reforms order a major restructuring, both of central bodies and areas, and of their decentralized instances.
According to analyzes carried out by the Institute’s Executive Secretariat, the problem lies in the fact that the reforms order the modification of both the Local Executive Boards (JLE) and the District Executive Boards (JDE). This is the current structure and these are the impacts with the implementation:
Changes in the Local Executive Boards
The Local Executive Boards (JLE) are the permanent bodies for the execution and technical support of the Institute’s activities in each federal entity.
Currently there are 32 (one per state) and they are made up of five committees that are:
• The Executive Member, who chairs it.
• The Vocal secretary.
• The Vocal of Electoral Organization.
• The Member of the Federal Register of Voters.
• The Vocal of Electoral Training and Civic Education.
With the reforms proposed in the General Law of Electoral Institutions and Procedures (LGIPE), its elimination is ordered. They will be replaced by a local body made up of three committees, instead of the five that currently work and are:
• Executive Member.
• Member of Electoral Organization and Training and Civic Education.
• Member of the Federal Register of Voters.
The expected impact on the workforce is that 262 positions would be eliminated and only 96 positions of the National Electoral Professional Service would remain in force.
The INE analyzes ensure that the elimination of the five committees that make up the JDE critically compromises the development of the substantive processes of the INE, since professional experience, knowledge of the social, political and cultural environment and the capacity to respond are lost. before the demands and challenges that arise in each electoral process.
Adjustments in the District Executive Boards
The District Executive Boards (JDE) are in charge of executing the Institute’s activities in each of the 300 single-member electoral districts, as well as evaluating compliance with the programs related to the Federal Register of Voters, Electoral Organization and Electoral Training and Civic Education.
Currently there are 300 (one per federal electoral district) and they are made up of an executive member who presides and three members of:
• Electoral organization
• Federal Register of Voters and Electoral Training and Civic Education of Voters and
• Electoral Training and Civic Education
The reforms proposed in the General Law of Electoral Institutions and Procedures order their elimination to be replaced by auxiliary offices, in charge of a single person called Operational Vocal, said figure replaces the executive, Training and Civic Education vocals; Electoral Organization; of the Federal Register of Voters and the Secretary’s Office. It is left in the power of a single person for a supposed budgetary economy.
With this, 1,500 positions corresponding to said committees would be eliminated, as well as those (300) that correspond to the headquarters of monitoring and analysis offices, so that eventually there would be 300 positions in the SPEN that would correspond to the new position that is intended to be created (membership operational).
The reforms order the dismissal of 2,175 workers of the National Electoral Professional Service
The application of the electoral reform package, also known as the Plan B from President López Obrador to the ill-fated Electoral Reform It will imply the dismissal of around 5,000 employees of the organization and an expense in liquidations for around 5,000 million pesos.
According to the budget for fiscal year 2023 of the INE, it has 17,555 workers, of which 10,370 are budget positions and 7,185 permanent fees.
There are two groups: the workers of the National Electoral Professional Service (SPEN) and those of the Administrative Branch.
Those of the SPEN add up to 2,571 and the reforms order to maintain only 396, which means that 2,175 must be liquidated, which represents 84.6 percent.
It is not clear which would be the positions to be liquidated, but since there are 396 that must remain and precisely 396 are the only positions admitted by the reforms in the Executive Local Boards (96) and the Executive District Boards (300), they are the only ones that they are going to stay
If this is finally carried out, then 2,175 SPEN positions would be eliminated, of which 22 correspond to the Executive Directorate of Training and Civic Education (DECEyEC); 55 from the Executive Directorate of Electoral Organization (DEOE); 58 of the Executive Directorate of the Federal Register of Electors (DERFE); 11 from the Executive Directorate of Prerogatives and Political Parties (DEPPP); nine from the Technical Unit for Links with Local Public Organizations (UTVOPL); 223 of the Technical Control Unit (UTF); 35 of the Technical Unit for Electoral Litigation (UTCE); 262 from the Local Executive Boards and 1,500 from the District Executive Boards.
According to the INE, experience shows, especially in processes organized at the local level, that the hiring of temporary personnel for electoral functions is problematic, due to factors that make it difficult to organize high-quality electoral processes, both due to inexperience of those who participate, as well as the high risk that parties and other political actors involve personnel with particular interests.
All this, coupled with the pretense of carrying out the same activities, with less sufficiently trained personnel; Insufficient human resources, in terms of quantity and quality, make it unfeasible for the organization of electoral processes and other activities carried out by the INE, in accordance with the high international standards that it has adopted in the last 30 years, which has made possible by the existence of a professional, impartial and independent civil service.
In terms of the reform, the administrative branch disappears
He National Electoral Professional Service That makes up the executive bodies of the INE is the professional structure that is in charge of: Credentialing and updating of the Electoral Roll; verification and certification of the holding of constituent assemblies of political parties; installation of the polling stations and supplying the electoral materials on the day of the electoral day, in addition to coordinating their recovery, maintenance and reuse.
In addition, they carry out the procedures to give certainty in the emission and computation of the vote, from the integration of the Board of Directors of Casilla, with the citizens of each place, drawn and trained to receive and count the votes of their neighbors, fill out the minutes and integrate the records of what happened during the election in each polling place; to the integration of results, verification and counting of votes in each electoral district, among several other functions.
An analysis carried out by the Executive Secretariat of the General Council of the Institute highlights that, in principle, the uncertainty is about the new structures, since it is unknown if they will be sufficient, if the experience of the personnel who currently holds a position will be used to integrate the new structures. In addition, it is unknown what would happen to SPEN personnel at the central level; coupled with the fact that, in terms of the reform, the “administrative branch” disappears.
It states that the elimination of paragraph 4 of article 30 of the LGIPE could imply that the administrative branch is subsumed to the SPEN, which is an important conceptual error.
He argues that the Service and the administrative branch have clearly differentiated objectives, functions and tasks, of a different nature. “The Service has the purpose of promoting the professionalization of those who exercise the electoral function and promote the development of their professional career. The staff of the administrative branch have objectives, functions, and tasks related to the administrative management of the institution’s human, material, and financial resources, but they also carry out support activities for qualified SPEN personnel. They are not targets that can be merged. The Service does not deal with the administrative affairs of its members, only with their professionalization and career development”.
