2106116Mexico's dilemma — Appendix ECarl William Ackerman

APPENDIX E


Presidential election


The Mexican Review, published at Washington, printed the following statement regarding the election which was held after the adoption of the new Constitution.

Herewith are given the complete returns of the Presidential election held on March 11th, canvassed by Congress and announced as the official figures.

In every instance the ballots were blank, a space being left for the voter to inscribe the name of his favourite candidate. As will be seen, several thousand votes were cast for others than President Carranza, Generals Gonzales and Obregon leading in this respect. Many others received smaller numbers of votes, including General Alvarado and other prominent revolutionary leaders.

The figures follow on page 280.


CARRANZA OFFICIALLY DECLARED PRESIDENT

After canvassing the returns of the election from the various States, the Chamber of Deputies I adopted a resolution in the following words,

States Carranza Gonzalez Obregon
Aguascalientes 7,394 28 17
Colima 4,874 27 19
Coahuila 26,841 52 219
Campeche 2,061 6 3
Chihuahua 5,883 2 57
Chiapas 14,277 3
Durango 6,816 17 202
Guanajuato 91,226 3,328 708
Guerrero 9,825
Jalisco 34,135 28 52
Mexico 52,513 1,676 620
Michoacan 33,627 1,615 120
Nuevo León 33,166 8 10
Oaxaca 60,964 138 73
Puebla 57,519 1,215 193
Querétaro 14,754 491 111
S. L. Potosí 22,638 71 51
Sinaloa 12,710 24 169
Tabasco 6,163 2 5
Hidalgo 19,949 70 32
Tlaxcala 21,724 176 53
Yucatan 25,717 12 14
Zacatecas 20,732 67 66
Vera Cruz 39,455 276 172
Sonora 20,667 6 367
Tepic 8,856 2 9
Baja California 3,056 25
Quintana Roo 345 12 2
Distrito Federal 70,003 1,773 553
——— ——— ———
Totals 797,305 11,615 4,008

The total number of votes cast was 812,928.

announcing officially that in the election held on March 11th the Citizen Venustiano Carranza received 797,305 votes, against various other candidates with a much inferior number of ballots. The resolution was unanimously approved. It reads as follows:

The Chamber of Deputies of the Twenty-seventh Congress of the Republic of Mexico, constituted in an Electoral College and in use of the rights and faculties conferred upon them by Section I of Article 74 of the Political Constitution of the Republic, have decreed, after a careful examination of the electoral computations verified on the second Sunday of March of this year:

Article I—The Citizen Venustiano Carranza is declared President for the term of four years beginning from December of 1916 until November of 1920, in virtue of having obtained an absolute majority of votes in the election.

Article II—In virtue of this, the Citizen Venustiano Carranza is cited to appear on May the first before the Chamber of Deputies, and with all the formalities of the law take the oath of office as President of the Republic.

Chamber of Deputies, Mexico, April 26, 1916.

Eduardo Hay, President.
Jesus Lopez Lira, Secretary.
Filomeno Mata, Second Secretary.