How Do You Stop Lawmakers From Destroying the Law?

Lorenzo Córdova is a lawyer and a scholar, a man with an office full of books. For most of the past decade, Córdova has served as president of the Mexican National Electoral Institute, an independent, nonpartisan but government-funded organization that first came into existence more than 30 years ago. The INE, as it is usually called (demonstrators chant “ee-nay, ee-nay”), has been so successful that until recently, its existence was taken for granted.

Why? Because men and women like Córdova have spent the past three decades systematically creating an electoral register and voter-ID cards, still the most secure form of identification in Mexico. Every time an election happens, even in the remotest corners of the country, INE sets up tens of thousands of polling booths. Citizen poll workers are recruited through a national lottery and trained to run polling stations, and INE organizes that