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.
