MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico held its first-ever judicial elections Sunday, stirring controversy and sowing confusion among voters who struggled to understand a process set to transform the country’s court system.

Polls closed and poll workers began counting colored ballots Sunday night with the question hanging in the air of what will become of Mexico’s judiciary, the answer to which will only emerge in the coming days as results roll in.

Mexico’s electoral authority announced late in the night that 13% of Mexico’s 100 million voters cast ballots at the polls, lagging far behind the 60% turnout just a year before during the country’s presidential election.

Nevertheless, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called the voting “a complete success.”

“Mexico is the most democratic country in the world,” she added.

Experts warned of startling low turnout in the lead up to the historic elections due to the mindboggling array of unfamiliar choices and the novelty of voting for judges. Experts say those factors may throw into question the legitimacy of the election, which has faced months of fierce scrutiny.

Sheinbaum, a member of Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, rejected the criticisms and insisted the election would only only make Mexico more democratic and root out corruption in a system that most people in the country believe is broken.

“Whoever says that there is authoritarianism in Mexico is lying,” she said. “Mexico is a country that is only becoming more free, just and democratic because that is the will of the people.”

While some voters said they felt pushed to vote in an election they felt would determine the fate of the country’s democracy, many more expressed a deep sense of apathy, citing disillusionment due to decades of corruption and lack of basic information about the vote.

“I’m not interested (in voting). Parties and their messages — they come and they go. It’s all the same,” said Raul Bernal, a 50-year-old factory worker in downtown Mexico City walking is dog.

A historic vote

Even without the final tally, the results of the vote are set to transform Mexico’s judiciary. Morena overhauled the court system late last year, fueling protests and criticism that the reform is an attempt by those in power to seize on their political popularity to gain control of the branch of government until now out of their reach.

“It’s an effort to control the court system, which has been a sort of thorn in the side” of those in power, said Laurence Patin, director of the legal organization Juicio Justo in Mexico. “But it’s a counter-balance, which exists in every healthy democracy.”

Instead of judges being appointed on a system of merit and experience, Mexican voters have cast ballots to choose between some 7,700 candidates vying for more than 2,600 judicial positions.

Mexicans head to the polls

Some of the country’s voting centers opened with only a trickle of people and small lines forming throughout the day.

Esteban Hernández, a 31-year-old veterinary student, said he didn’t agree with electing judges and doesn’t support Morena, but came to vote because “since there isn’t much participation, my vote will count more.”

He had studied the candidates on a website listing their qualifications and decided to pick those who had doctorates. Other critics said they only voted for the Supreme Court and other top courts.

Francisco Torres de León, a 62-year-old retired teacher in southern Mexico, called the process “painstaking because there are too many candidates and positions that they’re going to fill.”

Sheinbaum’s predecessor and political mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had pushed through the judicial reform but remained out of the public eye since leaving office last year, voted in Chiapas near his ranch.

“I wanted to participate in this historic election,” he said. “Never in the history of our country … have the people decided and had the right to elect judges.”

Democratic concerns

The process has raised concerns.

Civil society organizations like Defensorxs have raised red flags about a range of candidates running for election, including lawyers who represented some of Mexico’s most feared cartel leaders and local officials who were forced to resign from their positions due to corruption scandals.

Also among those putting themselves forward are ex-convicts imprisoned for years for drug trafficking to the United States and a slate of candidates with ties to a religious group whose spiritual leader is behind bars in California after pleading guilty to sexually abusing minors.

Others like Martha Tamayo, a lawyer and former congresswoman from conflict-ravaged Sinaloa, cast doubt on projections that the election could hand even more power over to criminals and criminal groups, simply because they already have a strong control over courts.

“The influence of criminal groups already exists,” she said. “The cartels go with the judges (bribe them) whether they are elected or not.”

‘You have to start with something’

The public has been plagued by confusion over a voting process that Patin warned has been hastily thrown together. Voters often have to choose from more than a hundred candidates who are not permitted to clearly voice their party affiliation or carry out widespread campaigning.

As a result, many Mexicans said they were going into the vote blind, though others voting Sunday noted they supported the process despite the confusion.

Mexico’s electoral authority has investigated voter guides being handed out across the country, in what critics say is a blatant move by political parties to stack the vote in their favor.

“Political parties weren’t just going to sit with their arms crossed,” Patin said.

While still unsure if his vote would improve access to justice for many Mexicans, 61-year-old actor Manuel José Contreras defended the election, Sheinbaum and her party. He cast his ballot with a tone of hope.

“The reform has its problems but we needed an urgent change,” he said. “You have to start with something.”

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AP journalists in Mexico Edgar H. Clemente in Tapachula, Alba Aléman in Xalapa and Fernando Llano in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Megan Janetsky, María Verza And Fabiola Sánchez, The Associated Press

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A fire in a drug rehabilitation center in the violence-plagued Mexican state of Guanajuato killed 12 people and injured at least three others, authorities said Sunday.

The fire broke out early Sunday in the town of San Jose Iturbe, where the municipal government said it was still investigating what caused the deadly blaze.

“We express our solidarity with the families of those who have been killed while they tried to overcome addictions,” the municipal government said in a statement, adding that it will help to pay for the funeral expenses of those killed.

Experts were gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses to establish “the reasons for the tragic incident,” the Guanajuato state prosecutor’s office said.

Mexican media outlets reported that the victims of the fire had been locked up inside the rehab center.

A woman lits candles at the rehabilitation center where 12 people died due to a fire in San Jose Iturbide community, Guanajuato state, Mexico on June 1, 2025. MARIO ARMAS/AFP via Getty Images

Mexico’s privately run drug rehabilitation centers are often abusive, clandestine, unregulated and underfunded. They have been the targets of similar attacks in the past.

The industrial and agricultural state of Guanajuato has for years been the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco New Generation cartel and a local gang, the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. Guanajuato has the highest number of homicides of any state in Mexico.

Just last month, investigators found 17 bodies during a search for missing persons in an abandoned house in Guanajuato. Days before that, seven people, including children, were gunned down in the same region.

Mexican drug gangs have killed suspected street-level dealers from rival gangs sheltering at rehab facilities in the past. Officials also believe cartels sometimes execute patients who refuse to join their ranks.

In April, gunmen shot up a drug rehab clinic in the troubled Sinaloa state, killing at least nine people.

In July 2022, six people were shot dead at a drug rehab center near the western Mexican city of Guadalajara. Two years before that, heavily armed men stormed a drug rehab center in the central city of Irapuato and killed 27 people.

In 2010, 19 people were killed in an attack on a rehab center in Chihuahua, a city in northern Mexico. More than a dozen other attacks on such facilities occurred in the decade between those massacres.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.

CNN —

Authorities have arrested a man in connection with recent arson attacks in New Mexico.

Jamison Wagner, 40, is facing federal charges for two separate attacks—one in February at the Tesla Albuquerque showroom and another in March at the office of the Republican Party of New Mexico, according to a release from the Department of Justice.

CNN has reached out to Wagner’s attorney for comment.

“I can now report that on Saturday morning, our @FBIAlbuquerque team and the @ATFPhoenix arrested an individual who we believe to be responsible for the February arson attack on a New Mexico Tesla facility,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X Monday.

“The evidence in this case stemmed from our ongoing investigation of the March arson attack on the New Mexico Republican Party HQ. Evidence recovered at the scene strongly suggests that this weekend, our brave agents prevented further planned arson attacks.”

A fire was reported on February 9 at the Tesla Albuquerque showroom just before 3:15 a.m., according to a complaint. Investigators found two Tesla Model Y vehicles damaged in a parking lot outside of the showroom, with one of the vehicles having significant damage, the complaint states.

A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives fire investigator at the scene determined that the fire was an “intentional human act.”

“While examining the two burned Tesla Model Y vehicles, investigators collected one intact glass container/incendiary device with a green metal lid inside the lesser fire damaged vehicle,” the complaint says. “The intact device or container held a vivid blue, gelatinous substance with a strong odor of an ignitable liquid, later confirmed by the ATF forensic laboratory as an improvised napalm material.”

In the second incident on March 30, just before 6 a.m., a fire was reported at the Republican Party of New Mexico headquarters, a court document says. The fire damaged the front door and lobby area of the building, according to the complaint. The words “ICE=KKK” were also spray-painted on the building, CNN previously reported.

There was “an odor consistent” with the smell of gasoline at the scene, the court document says.

“A fire scene examination was conducted, and based upon the data collected during the examination, an ATF Fire Investigator classified the fire as incendiary, meaning an intentional human act resulted in a fire occurring in a location when and where fire should not have occurred,” the complaint says.

Multiple Tesla facilities have recently been targeted by perpetrators setting fires to vehicles and vandalizing buildings.

Amid protests against the car company, President Donald Trump has said he would seek to have these attacks designated as domestic terrorism.

“Since January 2025, incidents targeting Tesla EVs have occurred in at least nine states,” a March 21 FBI public service announcement stated. “These incidents have involved arson, gunfire, and vandalism, including graffiti expressing grievances against those the perpetrators perceive to be racists, fascists, or political opponents.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk previously called the attacks “insane and deeply wrong.”

“Tesla just makes electric cars and has done nothing to deserve these evil attacks,” Musk said.

This story has been updated with additional information.