The 2021 election concluded in the city with the re-election of Katya Soto as local deputy for  District IX, and Ricardo Villarreal as federal deputy for District II; both of them from the National Action Party. Within the same party, Luis Alberto Villarreal had also run for a consecutive term as mayor of San Miguel. However, it was Mauricio Trejo Pureco of PRI, who was elected by a margin of almost three thousand votes. He will be sworn in on October 10 of this year.

 

The number of voters over 18 years of age in San Miguel exceeds 130,000, according to data from the Municipal Electoral Council of the IEEG (Electoral Institute of the State of Guanajuato). Because of these numbers, there were 234 basic polling stations installed. In some places there were up to seven voting stations, as in San Luis Rey, for example.

 

On Sunday, June 6 at 10am, 98 percent of the voting stations had opened. These citizens are chosen by lottery, and trained in the voting process by the National Electoral Institute and the IEEG. Because of the delay, two percent of the voting stations did not open until after 10am and thus voting started late in those parts. 

 

The 10 registered candidates for the mayor came out to vote, and everything seemed to proceed without incident. But early in the day Mauricio Trejo’s driver was detained by the police for allegedly hovering around polling places without justification and was arrested in Malanquín. According to Mauricio Trejo, the driver lives there, and he was going to Trejo’s house to take him to the voting center.

 

Later in the day, in the community of Rancho Viejo, three men were arrested for allegedly paying voters to cast votes for their party. The authorities confiscated 28 thousand pesos in cash from them. Also, in the same community, three young men were arrested for allegedly using drugs in a vehicle. Members of their party claimed that they were only bringing food from a political institution to colleagues who were monitoring the votes in that community.

 

At 6:20pm, Luis Alberto Villarreal, the current mayor and PAN candidate for a consecutive election, distributed a video on social networks in which he declared himself the winner. He said that different sources had stated that he had won, but he would wait for the official results. Meanwhile, Ricardo Ferro from MORENA made a live video in which he asked the candidates to refrain from declaring themselves victorious. At 6:30pm, Mauricio Trejo from PRI appeared on video claiming that he had won.

 

The polls closed at 6pm, and after counting each vote, the first results began to be published on the IEEG page through the PREP (Preliminary Electoral Results Program). Immediately the voting trend favoring Trejo began, first with one hundred votes, then with 500, then a thousand. When 50 percent of the votes were counted, it appeared almost impossible to reverse the trend. By 2am, Mauricio Trejo declared that the trend was irreversible. There were no parties, and no official live speeches by any candidates. Sixty thousand people voted. More than 16,578 votes went to the PAN party candidate Luis Alberto Villarreal, and 19,098 to Mauricio Trejo of PRI. The MORENA party ranked third, with Ricardo Ferro, 14,212 votes. The rest of the votes were distributed among the other parties.