The election was held amid stirring controversy and confusion among voters, many of whom struggled to understand a polling process which is set to transform the country’s court system.

For the first time in history, voters in Mexico will cast their ballots for justices, judges and magistrates in an election set to overhaul the nation’s judiciary. Sunday’s election will decide 881 federal judicial positions nationwide,

Conspicuously absent from the short biography on her pamphlets is the name of her best-known client: she was the defence lawyer for the notorious drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán. Her critics say her past defending the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel should disqualify her from standing as a judge. She gives that idea short shrift.

Critics say Mexico's ambitious judicial reform risks removing checks on the ruling Morena party and allowing organized-crime groups greater influence over the judicial system.

But concerns that the new system could threaten judicial independence ... law experts agreed that Mexico needed to change its judicial system, citing long-standing issues such as corruption ...