Election Day

Atenco, Mexico. State police commander Jose Flores Moreno makes a video tape record of the curbside polling place before it opened. Voters wait impatiently in the background. Extraordinary safeguards were taken nationwide in hopes of having a fair presidential election.  (Don Bartletti / LAT)

A nun casts her ballot during the general elections.  (AFP / Getty Images)

Atenco, Mexico. One of about 30 protestors spill fake blood in the town plaza in a noisy but peaceful march to denounce today’s presidential elections. The town suffered through a bloody police operation in May to take it back from the Front In Defense of the Land, a group calling for independence from Mexico.  (Don Bartletti / LAT)

General view of the press room of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) during the Mexican general elections in Mexico City.  (AFP / Getty Images)

The Mexican novelist and writer, Elena Poniatowska (left) with her daughter Paula Haro (right) at the Colonia San Angel to cast their votes. Poniatowska was recently the focus of a heated media attack (believed to be backed by the PAN party) for openly supporting Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (PRD presidential candidate). She is the author of “La Noche de Tlatelolco (The night of Tlatelolco),” a book recounting the massacres of student activists in 1968, in the plaza of Tlatelolco.  (Javier Manzano / LAT)

Ramiro Garcia of Sonora waited 5 hours before voting in Mexico City. Garcia was one of the lucky ones, hundreds were turned away when the voting station next door to the Federal Electorial Institute ran out of ballots and according to a law, were not allowed to get more for the people still waiting to vote.  (Sarah Meghan Lee / For The times)

Adriana Andrade holds up the number she was given to vote after being told she had waited in line for 6 hours for nothing. The voting station ran out of ballots and Andrade and hundreds of others were unable to vote in Mexico City.  (Sarah Meghan Lee / For The Times)

A crowd gathers outside a voting station next to the Federal Electorial Institute in Mexico City after people who were waiting in line for hours to vote were told there were no more ballots.  (Sarah Meghan Lee / For The Times)