In 1917, with the publication of the Constitution of Mexico the Junta Empadronadora, the local Computing Councils and the Electoral Colleges were placed in charge of organizing and supervising the election of the President, the Chamber of Deputies, and the Senate.

Some of its new responsibilities included emitting majority certificates to recognize winning candidates and intervention in the process to create new political parties.

Consequently, once he was president, he passed the 1977 political-electoral reform, that created the Law for Political Organizations and Electoral Proceedings (LOPPE).

[7] The IFE was formally established on October 11, 1990, after controversies surrounding the 1988 Mexican general election resulted in a series of constitutional reforms approved in 1989 and the Federal Code of Electoral Institutions and Procedures (Cofipe), a law passed in August 1990 and currently in force.

Since its creation, the constitutional and legal regulations in this subject matter have experienced further major reforms, which have affected the composition and details of the IFE.

It was also charged with oversight of all elections at local and state level, as well as plebiscites and the regulation of processes of citizen's participation in public administration.

In 2022, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador proposed a reform that would require INE officials to be elected by vote.

The idea is opposed by academics and nongovernmental organizations,[11][12] viewing it a way to politicize the body with parties steering their supporters to vote for particular candidates for the board.

Starting 2014, INE was also charged with oversight over local political parties, which before 2014 were registered by each state's Electoral Institute.

Rules and guidelines for the registration of political parties are outlined in the Federal Code of Electoral Institutions and Procedures.

The committee adopts an objective scoring function that includes criteria, such as population equality, compactness, preserving political boundaries, traveling time, and minority representation.