By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press Writer
 

                MEXICO CITY--In 1993, Olga Hernandez's grandparents supposedly voted in the state elections
           of San Luis Potosi, checking off the boxes for the ruling party candidates. Only they had been dead
           about 20 years.
                For decades, such outright fraud has been commonplace in Mexico's elections. The Institutional
           Revolutionary Party has held the presidency since 1929 -sometimes using dubious or outright illegal
           tactics to maintain power.
                As the July 2 presidential election approaches, Hernandez and others who work for election
           watchdog groups are convinced that outright fraud like the votes of her dead grandparents is no longer
           feasible.
                But they worry about more subtle methods of influencing voters, such as tying government welfare
           programs to the PRI, as the ruling party is widely known.
                "The days of robbing ballot boxes and filling the registry with phantom voters are gone," Hernandez
           said. "It's more complex now, but these tactics could have as strong an impact."
                Jaime Cardenas, a member of the governing council of the independent Federal Elections Institute,
           shares those worries. With the opposition posing perhaps the strongest threat ever to the PRI -an
           opposition leader is running neck-and-neck with the ruling party candidate -Cardenas says he expects
           to see dirty tactics.
                "We are only about halfway toward having transparency and fairness in Mexico," he said.
                Election monitors agree that electoral reforms should prevent a repeat of 1988, when Mexico was
           rocked by allegations that the PRI stole the presidential elections from challenger Cuauhtemoc
           Cardenas by manipulating the computerized vote count.
                But the ruling party tries to influence voters in ways that would cause outrage in many countries.
                "The historical government practice of providing goods or state services in exchange for votes may
           seriously imperil the elections," warns a report from the Washington Office on Latin America, an
           independent research and democracy advocacy group.
                Election officials are investigating nearly a dozen governors and high-ranking state officials after
           accusations that they used their power -and taxpayer money -to support PRI candidates, Cardenas
           said.
                Among them is Chiapas Gov. Roberto Albores, who admitted to holding a conversation about
           manipulating local news coverage to favor PRI candidate Francisco Labastida as the winner of the
           country's first presidential debate. Most national newspapers gave the victory to Vicente Fox of the
           center-right National Action Party, who is running even with Labastida.
                A week ago, television footage showed opposition party supporters and police pummeling one
           another over free construction material designated for backers of the PRI and stored in a municipal
           warehouse in a village outside Mexico City.
                Media barons linked to the ruling party tried to block anti-fraud public service announcements from
           the Federal Elections Institute. Some 1,840 scheduled spots were missed before government officials
           were pressured to intervene a few weeks ago.
                Last month, an elections court fined the ruling party $125,000 because its Mexico City mayoral
           candidate, Jesus Silva Herzog, handed out government-issued milk for the poor with his photo and
           party emblem in February.
                A recent study found a third of the people who voted in a March state election received gifts like
           scholarships and groceries via the ruling party, and 80 percent of the recipients voted for the PRI.
                Because of such incidents, Hernandez's group, the Citizens' Movement for Democracy, is sending
           hundreds of observers to small communities it believes are at risk for election fraud. The group plans
           to document any questionable tactics and announce its findings throughout the campaign.
                Hernandez said she herself had found a shady incident in the southern state of Oaxaca. In one area,
           she said, extremely poor women who receive aid from the federal welfare program Progresa recently
           received letters pointing out the money comes from the PRI government.
                The debate over campaign tactics has come despite major changes to make Mexico's elections
           more fair.
                The Federal Elections Institute, which until 1996 was controlled by the government but now is
           independent, has spent more than $900 million in cleaning up the electoral system.
                Officials revamped voter rolls in which a third of voters listed did not correspond to reality, either
           because the names were of people who did not exist or because it excluded opposition supporters.
                The institute also issued 60 million new voter ID cards with photographs and seven layers of
           fraud-proof paper, and it produced ballot boxes with openings big enough to fit only one ballot at a
           time.
                More than 450,000 Mexican citizens, chosen randomly, will man the nearly 113,000 polling places
           along with representatives of the various political parties.
                The institute also installed a computerized system that will post vote returns on the Internet as they
           come in on election day. And it set up a system for polling officials to quickly report irregularities.
                However, mechanisms for the institute to ensure the parties don't exceed the $100 million limit for
           the presidential campaign are insufficient, and it does not have enough legal authority to deal with
           questionable campaign tactics.
                Cardenas said real change will require a social transformation.
                "We can't legislate everything," he said. "There has to be a change in the political culture, which
           maybe will change with the advances toward more democracy in Mexico. But that's a long process."