The INE takes over the quick count in 17 gubernatorial elections

The General Council of the National Electoral Institute approved the exercise of the partial assumption faculty via the expedited route to assume the design, implementation, and operation of the quick counts in 17 gubernatorial elections of the 2026-2027 local electoral processes. The determination is contained in Resolution INE/CG571/2026, an extract of which was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, on page 222.

The agreement was adopted in an extraordinary session on September 29, 2026, and was signed on October 2, 2026, by the Executive Director of Legal Affairs, Anahí Silva Tosca. The instrument orders the publication of an extract of the resolution in the Official Gazette of the Federation and on the Institute’s website.

Seventeen entities and a single methodology

The General Council maintained that the concurrence of seventeen gubernatorial elections makes a homogeneous institutional scheme convenient, which leverages the experience, infrastructure, and technical capacities of the INE, and standardizes the mechanisms for sample design, collection, transmission, and processing of information.

The entities included in the partial assumption are:

• Aguascalientes
• Baja California
• Baja California Sur
• Campeche
• Chihuahua
• Colima
• Guerrero
• Michoacán
• Nayarit
• Nuevo León
• Querétaro
• Quintana Roo
• San Luis Potosí
• Sinaloa
• Sonora
• Tlaxcala
• Zacatecas

This represents all the entities where the leadership of the local Executive Power will be renewed during the 2026-2027 local electoral processes, which are scheduled to begin, as the case may be, between September 2026 and January 2027.

Origin: request from five councilors and expedited route

The resolution details that the request was submitted in writing by five members of the General Council, with electronic signatures, and that it meets the requirements of Article 121, paragraphs 3 and 4, of the LGIPE, in relation to Article 40, paragraphs 2 and 3, and Article 55 of the Regulations. The applicants argued that the principles of objectivity and certainty of the results could be compromised, affecting transparency.

The General Council justified resolving through the expedited route provided for in Article 40, numeral 6, of the Regulations, considering the timing of the processes, the nature of the technical activities, and the need for a sufficient planning margin. Among those activities, it listed:

• Planning of the field operation.
• Definition and execution of the sample design.
• Preparation and adaptation of computer systems.
• Coordination with decentralized bodies and Local Public Bodies.
• Tests and simulations prior to the Election Day.

Background and scope of the operation

The agreement compares the operational load with previous experiences: the INE coordinated up to 15 local quick counts in the 2020-2021 electoral process and nine in the 2023-2024 local process, while the current assumption involves seventeen state counts, a volume of work similar to that already performed.

The resolution states that the technical opinions of the DERFE, the DEOE, the UTSI, and the UTVOPL, along with the statements from the OPL, agree on the technical, operational, and material viability of the scheme. It also binds the electoral bodies of the seventeen entities to provide support and collaboration to the INE during the implementation and operation of the 2026-2027 Quick Count, and leaves matters of interpretation and technical follow-up to the Federal Voter Registry Commission, without modifying the terms of the approved assumption.

The change redefines the distribution of tasks for the next electoral cycle: the INE ceases to be a technical companion and will now directly operate the trend estimation exercises in highly competitive states such as Nuevo León, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Sinaloa. For readers, this means that the first reading of results for those governorships on the night of election day will depend on a single national operation, with standardized methods, samples, and systems, which reinforces the comparability and traceability of the data, but concentrates the operational responsibility for the seventeen counts within the Institute.

Source: Official Gazette of the Federation, October 28, 2026, First Section, p. 222 (official reference: Resolution INE/CG571/2026).