Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
A Latino voter surge in Arizona has long been predicted, but has yet to materialize, as it did in California after Republican Governor Pete Wilson screwed the pooch with his anti-immigrant Prop. 187. California is now reliably "blue."
Will Republican Governor Jan Brewer's embrace of disgraced recalled state senator Russell Pearce's anti-immigrant SB 1070 lead to the long anticipated Latino voter surge in Arizona on Tuesday? Latino groups say they have registered tens of thousands of new Hispanic voters in Arizona leading up to the Nov. 6 general election. Latino voters surge in Arizona:
Over the past six months, a coalition of 10 Latino groups has been going from door to door, registering new voters and encouraging voters who are already registered to sign up for early mail-in ballots. The groups also have been encouraging voters who have received early ballots to mail them in and even offering to deliver them to county election officials on their behalf.
The voter-registration drives are part of a concerted effort by advocacy groups to increase the number of Latino voters in Arizona to counter what they consider anti-Latino policies such as Arizona’s immigration law, Senate Bill 1070, and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration-enforcement sweeps.
The voter-registration efforts intensified over the past two weeks after it was revealed that [Maricopa] county printed the wrong election date on some election materials in Spanish, including bookmarks distributed at voter-outreach events and election reminders distributed with voter-ID cards.
The Spanish version of the materials gave Nov. 8 as the election date instead of the correct date, Nov. 6.
The errors sparked an outcry from Latino voting groups concerned that the wrong election dates printed in Spanish could prevent some Latinos from voting, undermining some of their efforts to boost Latino turnout at the polls.
The drive to increase Latino voter participation is not overtly aimed at benefiting a particular political party, but in general, Latinos tend to vote for Democrats. Several of the groups organizing the voter-registration drives are aligned with labor unions.
Many Latino advocates now say the attention the controversy has received could end up boosting turnout by adding to perceptions by many Latinos that they are under attack, either through immigration-enforcement laws such as SB 1070 or efforts to prevent them from voting.
“That’s definitely helped,” said Randy Parraz, who heads Citizens for a Better Arizona. “People are more inclined to vote now.”
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Petra Falcon, who heads the group Promise Arizona, agreed that the controversy surrounding the misprinted election materials could galvanize more Latinos to vote.
“When SB 1070 hit, we saw a lot of energy. Now, with this error, you are seeing the energy going up again,” she said.
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Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnic group in Arizona, and they could make up 50 percent of the state’s population by the middle of this century, according to a recent study by Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy.
But while Latinos currently make up 30 percent of the state’s population, they constitute a much smaller share of the electorate. In the 2008 general election, Latinos made up 11.6 percent of all voters, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, an advocacy group.
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The Latino population is also younger than that of non-Hispanic Whites, and younger voters in general tend to vote less often than older voters, the report said.
Also, a higher proportion of Latinos live in poverty, and lower-income people tend to vote less often then higher-income people, the report said.
Despite those and other obstacles, NALEO projects that 359,000 Latinos will vote in Arizona on Tuesday. That would be a 23 percent increase from the 291,000 Latinos who voted in the 2008 general election.
Arturo Vargas, executive director of NALEO, said the organization is projecting a large increase in the number of Latino voters for several reasons.
The number of Latinos eligible to vote in Arizona is increasing rapidly, primarily because of the number of Latinos turning 18.
“That population is actually growing faster than the population that votes in every election,” Vargas said.
Based on an analysis of voter rolls, there are 576,000 Latinos registered to vote in Arizona this year, up 40 percent from 410,000 Latino registered voters in 2008, according to NALEO.
Immigration-enforcement laws such as SB 1070, which are often perceived as anti-Latino, also have served to motivate Latino voters similar to the way more Latinos were spurred to register and vote in California in the wake of Proposition 187, Vargas said.
Prop. 187, passed in 1994 with the backing of then-California Gov. Pete Wilson, barred illegal immigrants from access to public education and hospitals but was eventually struck down by the courts.
Vargas said there also has been “unprecedented” efforts by groups to increase the number of Latino voters in Arizona.
“We haven’t seen this kind of mobilization and investment of resources in other elections,” Vargas said. “This is really a historic moment for the Latino community in Arizona.”
Falcon, of Promise Arizona, said her group has registered more than 34,000 new Latino voters in the past six months.
Francisco Heredia, Arizona director of Mi Familia Vota, a national group, said his organization has registered 7,500 new Latino voters in Arizona and has signed up 20,000 Latino voters for the permanent early-voter list, ensuring they will receive a ballot in the mail for every election.
Registered voters who receive ballots in the mail are more likely to vote, he said.
The increase in Latino voters could benefit President Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates the most.
The last Latino Decisions Tracking Poll for this election cycle will be released on Monday.