Mexican Absentee Vote Supressed?

For those of you who don't follow Mexican politics (and by that I mean, the politics of the actual nation to our South, not the radicalism playing out in our streets) there are presidential and legislative elections coming up in July.

Mexican law now allows Mexican nationals in the US to vote, but there's a problem. When Fox sent his proposal to fund the absentee voting to the legislature, he only asked for half of the money that was really needed. As a consequence, if you don't go to the Mexican consulate, you can't register to vote from abroad.

imdiversity.com

20 million dollars was enough to make 2 million forms available through Mexican consulates world wide, but since it's limited to the consulates, only about 132,000 registration forms were distributed as of last October, and as few as 400,000 absentee votes are expected from the roughly 10 million mexican citizens in America.

What I don't understand is why. In 2000, every Mexican I knew was thrilled that PAN had finally beaten PRI. Fox makes pressing for US immigration reform a major plank in his political platform. Why would he not have fought for more registration?

Then it hit me... I don't know all of the Mexicans here. I knew a few. So I have a question to ask: How popular is PAN over here, especially vis a vis the legislature? Because you know what- the consulates where you have to go to register are controlled by Mexico's executive branch, which PAN is currently running, so though they are limiting turnout, they could actually be widening the margin and hedging their bet against a potential variable for districts they already know they can win with the domestic vote.

I admit I'm a johnny-come-lately to the study of Mexican politics, so if anyone knows more and can help me understand what the deal here is, I would really appreciate it.
As it stands now, I think I might smell a rat.

juansonworld.blogspot.com...
www.mexidata.info...

mod edit to shorten link

[edit on 14-5-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]