National Independent Poll (Encuesta Nacional Independiente)

 Citizen’s Front in Defense of an Effective and Free Vote presented a poll done by the company Berumen and Associates,  whose results throw a technical draw between Enrique Peña Nieto and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, candidates to the presidency of the republic under the PRI-Green Party and PRD-PT-Citizens' Movement coalitions, respectively, followed by Josefina Vázquez Mota, from the PAN, in a distant third place.

Commissioned by the Observatorio Universitario Electoral (Electoral College Observatory), composed mainly by academics of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Metropolitan Autonomous University), the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico) and El Colegio de México (The College of Mexico), the poll establishes the following data regarding voting intention:  EPN, 30.9%; AMLO, 31.8%, and JV, 20.7%. 

In the event, John M. Ackerman gave a context presentation, followed by Amílcar Sandoval who read a rebuttal to a statement by IFE published during the weekend defending its role. He affirmed that the electoral umpire presents severe deficiencies in fulfilling its role, citing as an example the topic of polls where the Institute behaves as a mere registrar office, receiving reports on the methodologies without bringing them under analysis.

Edmundo Berumen (general director of the polling company) followed, offering various methodological details on the exercise of registering voters’ preferences: a sample designed under a strictly probabilistic approach to be applied in 600 electoral sections of the national territory. A total of 3 thousand 480 completed interviews were collected, raised between 30 May and 6 June, respecting the implementation of the sample design up until the household level, with up to three visits per household and without a substitution scheme, among other characteristics. 


According to Berumen, the majority of the polls thus far released in this electoral process do not extend over more than 200 electoral sections nor do they respect the probabilistic approach.

According to Ackerman, the poll shows that the ongoing process has turned into an election between two, as recently pointed out by Reforma’s poll.

(This post has been corrected: EPN: 30.9%, AMLO: 31.8% and JVM: 20.7%--still representing a technical tie. However, we have calls in to clear up confusion that arose last night as to whether these are the final or preliminary results. We will keep you posted.)