Tulum picked its Señorita Independencia by online form

Tulum lit up its Mes Patrio decorations on September 3 with three new Señoritas Independencia, Patria y Libertad beside the mayor, chosen this year without a public stage, a jury, or a published rulebook.

The municipal government replaced the in-person pageant with a vote cast through a digital form. Deisy Esmeralda Mas Tun took the title of Señorita Independencia 2026, Sinai Montserrath Pech Ocaña was named Señorita Patria and Erika Yuselmi Morales Carabeo received the title of Señorita Libertad. The three were presented at the traditional lighting ceremony that opens the patriotic month, held under the banner of the 216th anniversary of the start of Mexico's War of Independence, with Mayor Diego Castañón Trejo presiding.

The pageant was one of the few municipal events of the year built around families rather than visitors. Moving it onto phone screens changes who decides, how they decide, and whether anyone can check the result, and the municipality has not explained any of the three.

How the Señorita Independencia pageant worked before 2026

For decades, the contest was a public act. Candidates presented themselves to Tulum families and took part in an open event where they could demonstrate poise, knowledge of Mexican history, cultural identity, and pride in the country's traditions. The audience saw the contestants speak. The contestants saw the town that would carry their names for a year.

The last well-documented format shows how the pieces fit together. In 2022, according to coverage by Sipse and Quadratín Quintana Roo, the municipality ran the pageant in three stages: online voting on a photo gallery hosted on the municipal website, a second online round built on video presentations about Independence, and a live final on August 30 with a question-and-answer session judged by a panel. The municipal education director at the time, Nilvia Margarita Lizama Guerrero, said the contest would be run "with complete transparency" on the mayor's instructions.

Public voting was already part of the process, in other words. What held it together was the final stage, where a jury in a room full of neighbors evaluated the candidates on what they said and how they carried themselves.

A form on a phone replaced the jury

For 2026, that final stage disappeared. The three titles were decided by votes submitted via digital forms on cell phones and computers, with no public presentation of the candidates and no panel.

The municipal government has not published the controls it applied to the vote. There is no public description of how it verified that each vote came from one person, whether it limited votes by device or account, what criteria it used to evaluate the candidates beyond the tally, or how it guaranteed that all contestants competed under the same conditions. A form that accepts votes from anywhere rewards the candidate with the widest network of social media contacts, which is a different quality from the ones the pageant was created to recognize.

Other municipalities in Quintana Roo hold the same contest, and the contrast is instructive. Felipe Carrillo Puerto's 2026 convocation, published in August, schedules a live pageant for September 15 at 8 p.m. at Parque Ignacio Zaragoza, with a parade in traditional dress, a formal-gown segment, and a patriotic message, judged on stage presence, performance, attire, and content. That is the format Tulum set aside.

Three titles decided, one question left open

The three young women hold their titles legitimately. The municipality named them and presented them at the opening of the patriotic month. The objection is to the method, and to the decision to remove a space where residents took part in choosing who represents the town.

A pageant of this kind does two jobs. It selects representatives and gathers the town around a civic date unrelated to tourism. The online form performs the first job. It does not perform the second, nor does it produce a record that residents can examine.

What a digital vote cannot replace

Technology has a place in a contest like this one. The 2022 format proved that online rounds can open the process to more people without dissolving it. The problem with the 2026 version is that the digital vote became the whole process rather than one part of it, and nothing was published to give it the legitimacy that a public stage and a jury once provided.

Tulum opened its patriotic celebrations with new titleholders and a tradition reduced to clicks. If the point of the patriotic month is to strengthen Mexican history and identity, the 2027 convocation will have to restore a public, dignified, and transparent process. The calendar moves next to the Grito de Independencia on September 15, the first occasion for the town to see its three titleholders in person, after having had no chance to watch them compete.

Should Tulum bring back the live pageant with a jury, or is a digital vote enough to choose its Señorita Independencia? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes .