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to make all kinds of protests, providing they refer to votes in favor of any of the candidates appearing before the people" and those who were chosen to manage the polls were to be persons who would "inspire absolute confidence" and who were "well versed in the electoral law."
The private instructions sent out provided, it is reported, that the persons in charge of the polls were to be "absolutely reliable, so that they may follow the instructions given to them." It was planned to prevent, where possible, the election in two-thirds plus one of the polls in each district, to make the choice void. In all the polls that did operate blank tickets were to "be made use of in order that the absolute majority of the votes may be cast in favor of General Huerta. . ." and if these means failed the returning officers were to falsify the result.[1]
The government recognized in the election of 1917 that the executive influence exercised in the elections of the old régime did not square with true democratic standards and announced its intention to have the voting unaffected by official pressure. First Chief Carranza announced that the reports that some of the candidates for governorships were official candidates were unfounded. He declared "the Constitutional government, which I have the honor to represent, will not sustain or protect any popular candidate whatsoever. . . . In virtue of this in some of the States, where the provisional
- ↑ This interesting set of directions, dated October 22, 1913, is published in the Congressional Record, vol. 51 part 9, p. 8517, May, 1914.
