The Mexican Senate on Friday narrowly passed a constitutional amendment to allow the highest electoral court to invalidate any election results deemed to have been influenced by foreign powers.
The move comes amid escalating U.S.-Mexico tensions and as the Trump administration has been accused of aggressive election meddling and political interference across the hemisphere.
But the bill could also help Mexico’s governing party, Morena — which exerts significant control over all three branches of government — to further consolidate power by annulling election results the government disagrees with, critics and allies say.
“Every single Mexican should agree on this: There should be zero foreign meddling in our elections,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday as she backed the proposal. Ms. Sheinbaum has dealt with increasing pressure from the White House to go after cartels and corrupt politicians, even those within her leftist coalition. She rejected concerns that the amendment could strengthen her party’s power.
The legislation seems to be aimed, at least in part, at the United States.
President Trump has intervened in the elections of other countries in the region. Last year, he warned Argentine voters that a $20 billion economic bailout package for the country depended on the victory of President Javier Milei’s party in legislative elections. And in Honduras, President Nasry Asfura won this year’s election after Mr. Trump endorsed him.
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has designated drug cartels as terrorist organizations and threatened unilateral military action if Mexico does not eradicate them. He has also repeatedly offered Ms. Sheinbaum the U.S. military’s help in fighting organized crime, despite her constant refusals.
“The cartels rule Mexico, and nobody else,” Mr. Trump said this month.
During a heated debate on Friday, in which 85 senators approved the amendment and 42 voted against it, legislators acknowledged that election meddling from foreign powers was a real risk.
The bill, which was cleared by the lower house of Congress this week, must now be approved by a majority of state legislatures by next Friday, at which point it would be sent to Ms. Sheinbaum for official publication. Ratification is a near certainty because Morena and its allied parties dominate most local congresses.
The proposal also comes ahead of critical midterm elections next year in which the political future of Morena may be defined. In June 2027, voters will choose 17 out of 32 governors, elect all 500 seats in the lower house and vote for more than 2,000 mayors.
“This is about ensuring that in Mexico decisions are made by the people — free from pressures, foreign money, manipulative campaigns and external interests disguised as civil society organizations, public opinion or so-called democracy,” Óscar Cantón Zetina, a Morena senator, said during the voting session.
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Mexico’s Constitution already allows for election results to be tossed out when candidates exceed campaign spending limits, buy news coverage deemed illegal or use illicit funds, such as money from drug cartels.
The new legislation would add a line to the charter allowing the country’s highest electoral court to declare an election legally void if it determines that “acts of foreign intervention or interference that influence election results are proven.” If that happens, a mandatory rerun election must be called.
But the court, Mexico’s electoral tribunal, is largely aligned with the government “and consistently rules in favor of Morena and the ruling bloc in high-stakes political cases,” said Javier Martín Reyes, a constitutional lawyer and researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
This week, Morena legislators passed a last-minute change to allow the tribunal’s magistrates to be re-elected in 2028, which they were previously barred from doing. The move could extend their terms to as long as 17 years.
Ms. Sheinbaum has conceded it is important for the amendment to be properly regulated by secondary laws that explicitly define what “foreign interference” means and how the authorities would be able to prove it occurred.
Such regulatory measures were withdrawn before the Senate vote on Friday under pressure from both opposition and ally legislators.
The withdrawal worried experts who warned that Mexico’s electoral court would now have free rein to define foreign interference ahead of the 2027 midterm elections. The amended article in the Constitution “could be applied directly without the need for secondary legislation to clarify its terms or limit its scope,” said Mr. Martín Reyes.
Even some Morena members and allied legislators expressed discomfort about the bill.
“This amounts to the criminalization of international debate and the press,” Luis Armando Melgar, a senator with Mexico’s Ecologist Green Party, a Morena ally, said about the amendment. He voted against the bill, which he called “pathetic,” on Friday.
Olga Sánchez Cordero, a jurist and Morena legislator, abstained from voting at the lower house because she said she thought the bill was too broad and ambiguous, and could lead to arbitrary scenarios.
“Imagine a ruling saying that the sole reason voter preferences shifted and someone ultimately lost the election stems from a comment made by The New York Times, Fox, CNN or an official from the U.S., French or Spanish governments,” Ms. Cordero said. “It’s a completely open-ended rule.”
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
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