Drug Dealers Shoot Down Voting Idea
Sinaloa officials, premiering a new state election law, were eager to get returns quickly and smoothly.
So Hector Ruiz Almada, chairman of the state election commission, organized a fleet of helicopters and light planes to deliver ballots and vote tally sheets from the state’s most remote precincts to the county seats.
One big problem: Culiacan is viewed as the capital of Mexico’s drug trade. Here, small aircraft are usually carrying either drugs or federal police looking for drug dealers.
Shortly after Ruiz Almada announced his plan, he received an anonymous note from Sinaloa de Leyva, a county in the heart of drug country, warning that helicopters and small planes flying around there would be shot down, even on election day.
As an alternative, the authors--presumably local drug dealers--offered to distribute and pick up the ballots themselves.
State officials opted for overland delivery.
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