✶ Poder Judicial de la Federación · first judicial election 1 June 2025
Nine ministers,
chosen by ballot.
On 1 June 2025 Mexico elected judges by popular vote for the first time, from the Supreme Court down: 881 federal posts were on six ballots; about 13% of the roll took part. The new Supreme Court of nine took office on 1 September 2025, presided over by its most-voted member, Hugo Aguilar Ortiz. The second election, for the remaining judges, is set for 4 June 2028.
DOF 15 September 2024 · reforma del Poder Judicial
The 2024 reform
in five changes.
- All federal judges, magistrates and Supreme Court ministers elected by popular vote (art. 96)
- Supreme Court cut from 11 to 9 ministers; 12-year terms; presidency rotates every two years by votes
- Consejo de la Judicatura Federal replaced by a Judicial Discipline Tribunal (5 elected) and a Judicial Administration Body
- Each branch (executive, Congress, Supreme Court) nominates candidates after evaluation committees and a public lottery
- Half of circuit and district judges elected in 2025, the rest at the next federal election
President López Obrador sent the initiative in February 2024. The Chamber of Deputies approved it on 4 September 2024 by 359 to 135, with Morena, the PVEM and the PT; the Senate on 11 September 2024 by 86 to 41, with the vote of PAN senator Miguel Ángel Yunes Márquez. Twenty-three state legislatures had approved when the Senate counted them on 13 September, and it was published two days later. How an amendment passes →
Supporters, led by the government, said elections would make judges accountable and end corruption and privilege in the courts. Judges' associations, the federal judiciary's staff, who struck from August 2024, the opposition parties and bar associations said it would end judicial independence; the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges also raised concerns. The outgoing Supreme Court did not strike it down: a draft ruling to annul parts of it lacked the eight votes needed (5 November 2024).
Votes: Cámara de Diputados and Senate records as reported by N+ and Expansión ↗ (secondary).
On the ballot · 881 federal posts
Six ballots,
six colours.
Every voter received the three national ballots and three for their judicial circuit and district; states that elected local judges the same day added their own. Voters wrote the two-digit number of each chosen candidate in a box.
| Ballot | Office | Posts | Candidates | Voters could choose | Turnout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purple | Supreme Court ministers Ministras y ministros de la SCJN | 9 | 63 | up to 5 women and 4 men | 13.02% |
| Mint green | Judicial Discipline Tribunal Tribunal de Disciplina Judicial | 5 | 38 | up to 3 women and 2 men | 12.99% |
| Blue | Electoral Tribunal, Sala Superior Sala Superior del TEPJF | 2 | 15 | 1 woman and 1 man | 12.98% |
| Orange | Electoral Tribunal, regional chambers Salas Regionales del TEPJF | 15 | 94 | 3 per chamber: up to 2 women and 1 man | 12.95% |
| Pink | Circuit magistrates Magistraturas de Circuito | 464 | 1,634 | by speciality, as the ballot shows | 12.93% |
| Yellow | District judges Juezas y jueces de Distrito | 386 | 1,551 | by speciality, as the ballot shows | 12.94% |
Posts: transitorio Segundo and INE. Candidates and turnout: INE district counts (cómputos distritales), file of 9 June 2025. Colours: as reported by Uno TV ↗ (secondary); the swatches are approximate.
Art. 96 · nomination
Three committees
and a lottery.
- October 2024
The Senate's call
The Senate published the call (convocatoria) and the list of posts. Sitting judges were put on the ballot automatically unless they declined.
- Each branch
Evaluation committees
The executive, the legislature and the judiciary each formed a committee of five jurists, who checked applicants' requirements (law degree, grades, five reference letters, an essay) and listed the best evaluated for each post.
- January–February 2025
The lottery
The lists were cut to the number of nominations by public draw (insaculación, popularly tómbola), keeping gender parity.
- Nomination
The three branches
The President, each chamber of Congress (by two thirds) and the Supreme Court sent their nominees to the Senate, which passed the lists to INE. A candidate could be nominated by more than one branch.
The judiciary's committee stopped work in January 2025 after a district court suspended the process; when the Electoral Tribunal ordered the Senate to hold the draw for the judiciary's lists instead, the committee's five members resigned (27 January 2025), and the Senate held the draw. Expansión ↗ (secondary). For 2028 the amended art. 96 has each committee list four per post and draw two.
Practice ballot · boleta de práctica
Fill in the purple
Supreme Court ballot.
Sixty-three candidacies stood for nine seats. Tap names, or type numbers into the boxes; the ballot checks each box.
Practice ballot · not an official document
Ministras y Ministros de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación
Write the number of up to 5 women and up to 4 men. Leaving boxes empty is allowed.
Mujeres · 32 candidates
Hombres · 31 candidates
Names as INE prints them, surnames first. Numbered here alphabetically by first surname, as the decree prescribes; the printed ballot's numbers may differ. One candidacy cancelled after printing is left out. How real ballots with mistakes were counted is set by INE's counting guidelines; this page only flags them.
Results · Supreme Court
Five women, four men,
alternating from a woman.
Seats go to the most-voted, assigned alternately to women and men starting with a woman (transitorio Segundo). Terms are eight or eleven years, ending in 2033 for four and 2036 for five, the longer ones going to the most-voted; the three ministers already on the court who were re-elected keep the rest of their original appointment (transitorio Tercero). The presidency rotates every two years to the next most-voted (art. 94), so Hugo Aguilar Ortiz presides first.
- President of the Court · Ministro Hugo Aguilar Ortiz AGUILAR ORTIZ HUGO 5,900,789 votes Nominated by Executive
-
Ministra Lenia Batres Guadarrama BATRES GUADARRAMA LENIA 5,534,681 votes Nominated by Sitting (en funciones) -
Ministra Yasmín Esquivel Mossa ESQUIVEL MOSSA YASMIN 4,985,925 votes Nominated by Sitting (en funciones) -
Ministra Loretta Ortiz Ahlf ORTIZ AHLF LORETTA 4,736,571 votes Nominated by Sitting (en funciones) - Ministra María Estela Ríos González RIOS GONZALEZ MARIA ESTELA 4,440,634 votes Nominated by Executive, Legislature
- Ministro Giovanni Azael Figueroa Mejía FIGUEROA MEJIA GIOVANNI AZAEL 3,411,191 votes Nominated by Executive
- Ministro Irving Espinosa Betanzo ESPINOSA BETANZO IRVING 3,354,485 votes Nominated by Executive
-
Ministro Arístides Rodrigo Guerrero García GUERRERO GARCIA ARISTIDES RODRIGO 3,278,988 votes Nominated by Executive -
Ministra Sara Irene Herrerías Guerra HERRERIAS GUERRA SARA IRENE 3,053,788 votes Nominated by Executive, Legislature
Photos: Lenia Batres Guadarrama — EneasMx, CC BY 4.0 · Yasmín Esquivel Mossa — Sistema de Transporte Colectivo / Gobierno de la Ciudad de México, CC BY 4.0 · Loretta Ortiz Ahlf — Zs12783, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Arístides Rodrigo Guerrero García — LectorInformadoCDMX2026, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Sara Irene Herrerías Guerra — Rchernadez881, CC BY-SA 4.0 . Via Wikimedia Commons.
Votes: INE's declaration of validity, 15 June 2025, after excluding polling stations. Central Electoral ↗ Upper-case names: as INE prints them in its count files. In the district counts before the exclusions (file of 9 June 2025) the order was the same; Aguilar had 6,195,612.
Turnout, null votes and blank boxes
One voter
in eight.
On the Supreme Court ballot 12,965,574 people voted, 13.02% of the 99,594,010 on the roll; INE's quick count had estimated between 12.57% and 13.32%. For comparison, turnout at the 2024 general election was 61.04%.
Each voter had nine boxes, so the ballot counts 116,690,139 marks: 90,031,918 for candidates, 12,604,157 null (10.8%) and 14,054,064 boxes left empty (12.0%).
- Candidates 77.2%
- Null 10.8%
- Blank 12.0%
The other national ballots
Discipline Tribunal
and Sala Superior.
Magistraturas del Tribunal de Disciplina Judicial
- MAYA GARCIA CELIA woman 5,233,666
- DE GYVES ZARATE EVA VERONICA woman 5,034,872
- BATIZ VAZQUEZ BERNARDO man 4,652,720
- GARCIA PEREZ INDIRA ISABEL woman 4,346,396
- H LEON TOVAR RUFINO man 4,032,446
5 seats · 38 candidates · district counts before exclusions
Magistraturas de la Sala Superior del Tribunal Electoral
- BATIZ GARCIA GILBERTO DE GUZMAN man 4,748,915
- VALLE AGUILASOCHO CLAUDIA woman 4,203,694
2 seats · 15 candidates · district counts before exclusions
Gilberto de Guzmán Bátiz García has presided over the Sala Superior since 1 November 2025.
Disputes · stated as each side put them
Guides, turnout,
and the count.
-
“Acordeones”
Printed guides listing candidate numbers circulated before the vote. Opposition parties and several INE councillors said they were used to steer votes. The council's majority held that the irregularities it found did not invalidate the election.
-
Excluded polling stations
On 15 June 2025 INE's council declared the Supreme Court election valid by six votes to five, after excluding 818 polling stations in 25 states where it found irregularities such as turnout above 100% or ballots that had never been folded. Councillor Arturo Castillo proposed not validating it. Expansión ↗
-
Low turnout
About 13% voted, against 61% at the 2024 general election. Critics said this gave the new judges a weak mandate; the government pointed to some 13 million voters in a first election of its kind, held without party campaigns.
-
The Tribunal's ruling
In August 2025 the Electoral Tribunal's Sala Superior dismissed the challenges to the Supreme Court and 16 other national contests, finding that they did not prove irregularities large enough to annul. Por Esto ↗
Press reports (secondary); Expansión, 15 June 2025 ↗.
DOF 2 June 2026
The second election
moves to 2028.
The rest of the circuit and district judges, the regional electoral magistrates and local judges were to be elected with the 2027 midterm. An amendment published on 2 June 2026 moved the second judicial election to the first Sunday of June 2028, 4 June 2028, federal and local together; judges whose terms would end in 2027 stay until then.
It also changes the procedure: ballots must show which branch nominated each candidate; votes are counted at the polling station, not at INE's district councils; and the vote is held where the ordinary election is, without party representatives. Each evaluation committee lists four per post and draws two. DOF 2 June 2026 ↗