At the Federal District the territorial area in which an election is organized is known as the electoral geographic framework. It is represented in maps at the level of the Federal District, by Borough and single member electoral district.

In accordance to the Electoral Code of the Federal District, the areas in which a local election is organized are (article 11):

• Constituency, for the election of Head of Government

• Borough, for the election of the heads of the boroughs, and

• Local single member district, in case of the deputies by the principle of plurality system.

These scopes determine the geographic space related to the government structures and political representation and thus constitute the boundaries that the Electoral Institute of the Federal District uses for the organization of Electoral process.

The minimum territorial sections of each one of these electoral scopes are the electoral sections. These constitute the space framework of reference to inscribe the citizens at the Registry of voters, prepare the electoral mapping, issue the Voter Lists of the inscribed citizens, draw the officers of the directive board of the polling station, define covering strategies of the electoral training programs and distribution of the electoral materials, and integrate the vote results, among others.

To the set of maps that represent each one of the electoral scopes aforementioned is known as the geographical electoral framework.

In other words, for electoral purposes, the Federal District is divided into:

• 1 constituency

• 16 Boroughs

• 40 single member local districts and

• 5,532 electoral sections

The meaning of each one of these divisions is the following:

Constituency: For the purposes of the election of Head of Government, the Federal District is considered as a single constituency. For the designation of the deputies of proportional representation through the system of lists, the Federal District has only one single member district constituency which covers the totality of its territory.

Borough: In articles 10 and 11 of the Organic Law of the Public Administration of the Federal District it is set forth that the Federal District is divided into 16 territorial demarcations (political Boroughs) and it sets forth their political administrative boundaries. For electoral purposes all the Boroughs are internally divided into electoral sections.

Single member electoral district:  Article 202 of the Electoral Code of the Federal District sets forth that the General Council of the Electoral Institute of the Federal District is the one who approves, within the following six months to the official publication of the results of the corresponding General Population and Housing Census, the configuration of the single member electoral districts.

Electoral Section:  The Electoral Code of the Federal District in its article 203 sets forth that the electoral section is the territorial fraction of the electoral districts for the inscription of the citizens in the General Catalog of Electors, the Registry of voters and the Voter List of Electors of the Federal Register of Electors, it also indicates that each electoral section will have as minimum 50 electors and as a maximum 1,500.

It must be mentioned that the constant changing of the urban outline of Mexico City, derived from the emerging of new settlements and of the correction of countless aspects of the urban equipment, makes it necessary that the plans are updated to reflect such variations in the electoral cartography, even if it does not affect the amount of electoral sections that contain the single member electoral districts and the politic Boroughs.

Because of that, the updating of the geographical electoral frame of the Federal District is permanent and during the previous year to the electoral campaign and it shall be finished in the first three months after the beginning of the electoral process, with the purpose of supporting the preparation and correct execution of the legal obligations of the Institute.

Territorial scope for the election of Head of Government

For the purposes of the election of the Head of Government, article 52 of the Government Statute of the Federal District sets forth that the Head of Government of the Federal District will be elected by universal, free, direct and secret voting, in the same date that the election for Constitutional President of the United Mexican States is held. Besides, article 216 of the Electoral Code for the Federal District sets forth that the first Sunday of the month of July of the corresponding year the ordinary elections of Head of Government of the Federal District will be held.

It is necessary to point out that this kind of election is organized only each six years, and the last one was developed in 2006.

Part of the complexity that involves organizing the elective process in this space area represents can be dimensioned if the 7. 34 million of citizens registered at the Registry of voters (until May of 2009), the 5,529 electoral sections, the 12,162 polling stations that are installed to decide the vote and the surface of the Federal District (1,502.127 km2) are considered.

Territorial scope for the election of heads of the boroughs

Article 104 of the Government Statute of the Federal District sets forth that the Public Administration of the Federal District will have an administrative political organization in each territorial Entity and that for the purposes of this Statutes and the corresponding law, said territorial localities and the political administrative organizations in each one of them is generically named Borough. Also, article 105 first paragraph of such Statutes sets forth that each Borough is integrated by a head, which is generically named head of the borough, who is elected in a universal, free, secret and direct manner.

The distribution of the surface, population, voters and polling stations per Borough is the following:

a Surface estimated by software of information systems: Geomedia.
b Data from the  XII General Census of Population and Housing, INEGI.
c Data as of May 18, 2009 IFE-IEDF.

Note: During the day of the election, three polling stations were merged (2 in Álvaro Obregón and 1 in Tlalpan) and 21 special polling stations were installed, for that reason the total number of polling stations installed, were 12,488.

The following map shows the electoral boundaries of the Boroughs:

Configuration of the 40 single member electoral districts

The territorial scope applicable for the elections of the deputies by the principle of plurality system is equal to the number of single member districts. This means, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District is elected by the principle of plurality system in each district. In this manner Mexico City is divided in 40 single member electoral districts, which are shown graphically in the following map:

In order to have a clear idea of how the population is distributed in the 40 single member electoral districts, the statistics of area, population, electoral sections, Voter List and polling stations of each one are shown in the following schedule:

a Surface estimated by jeans of software of information systems: Geomedia.
b Estimated by the DEOyGE based on the data of the XII General Population and Housing Census, INEGI.
c Data as of May 18, 2009 IFE-IEDF.

Note: During the day of the election, three polling stations were merged (1 in the District XX, one more in the District XXI and the last one in the District XXXVIII) and 21 special polling stations were installed, for that reason the total number of polling stations installed, were 12,488.