Latinos Push to Sign Up a Million Voters

Latino leaders Friday announced their final push to register nearly a million Latino voters nationwide for the November presidential election. The drive is part of a growing effort to realize the potential of the estimated 13 million eligible Latino voters in the U.S.--nearly half of whom are not registered.

Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a leader in the Latino Vote 2000 drive, said 1.5 million eligible Latino voters in California alone are still not registered--a significant stumbling block to exercising their influence at a time when both parties’ presidential candidates are courting Latino votes as never before.

Gonzalez said Latinos have a great opportunity to have an impact in swing states with significant Latino populations, such as Illinois and Florida.

About 7.2 million Latinos are registered to vote nationwide, Gonzalez said at a Los Angeles news conference. Between 4.8 million and 5.8 million of those eligible to vote are not registered, he said. The drive’s goal is to have 8 million Latinos registered before the November elections, he said.

“We’re the soccer moms of 2000,” Gonzalez said, referring to a voting bloc targeted in the last presidential election. “This is the only electorate that is growing significantly. The vote that is spiraling upward and reaching critical mass is the Latinos.”

But some analysts say the Latino electorate is only beginning to flex its political muscle. Latinos cast 4.9 million ballots in the 1996 presidential election, according to figures provided by Gonzalez’s group. The Latino voter drive hopes to get more than 6 million Latinos to the polls this fall.

One of the dozens of local officials who will be mobilizing volunteers for the registration drive is Ramon Gomez, a city councilman in the Santa Cruz County community of Watsonville, where 3,500 of the 11,000 registered voters are Latino.

To reach the 2,500 eligible Latinos who are not registered, volunteers will set up booths at shopping malls and supermarkets. There will be “motor registrations,” with volunteers driving through communities with carloads of registration forms.

“We’re trying to expand democracy to all Americans and make sure they exercise their right to vote,” Gomez said.

Representatives of both political parties vigorously staked their claims to the Latino vote Friday, giving the nonpartisan event a taste of the presidential campaign--in which, Gonzalez said, Latino leaders are going to push the candidates for clear positions on such issues as education reform, a new amnesty for illegal immigrants, access to health care for the working poor, and a significant increase in the minimum wage.

“Both sides want us. Both sides are speaking Spanish. Both sides have many Hispanics working for them,” he said. “Our perspective is we have to find out what each side is proposing in terms of concrete change.”

Huntington Park Councilman Rosario Marin, a supporter of presumptive GOP nominee George W. Bush, spoke frankly of mitigating the damage done to Latino support during the term of California Gov. Pete Wilson, when anti-immigrant rhetoric was at an all-time high and Proposition 187 was passed.

Marin said the GOP was still recovering from that era, and “the party and Gov. Bush recognize it.”

“That’s why we need to reach out and give those specific positions on what he plans to do,” she said. “Latinos have benefited in Texas because of Gov. Bush, and I’m hopeful that he would be able to translate that to California.”

Janet Murguia, the deputy campaign manager for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Vice President Al Gore, questioned Bush’s record on issues important to Latinos, saying that Texas has the nation’s highest percentage of uninsured Latino women and children, and that Bush has never visited the poor border towns where Latino immigrants live in Third World conditions.

“We ought to look at every aspect of that record,” she said. “Al Gore has been an advocate of Latinos for years. While it’s reassuring that a Republican presidential candidate is for the first time reaching out to the Latino community, we think people are going to look at the long-term record.”

Latinos traditionally have tended to vote Democratic, with the exception of anti-Communist Cuban immigrants in Florida and New Jersey. One recent poll gave Gore a 16-point lead over Bush among Latino voters nationwide, and a second voter survey found a 22-point margin for Gore.

Bush has courted Latino voters in numerous campaign appearances in California and has pressed his bilingual Latino nephew, whose name is also George Bush, into service as a symbol of the Latino-friendly face of “compassionate conservatism.”

But analysts suggest that Bush is making a more complex pitch.

By playing to Latinos, Bush also signals to moderate swing voters that he favors diversity. And the message helps the Republicans engaged in “party-building” among Latinos, cultivating a long-term appeal that could draw more Latino voters in future elections.

Latinos who are still not voting will be wooed in a few weeks with slick new bilingual TV ads, part of MTV’s Rock the Vote campaign, that Gonzalez unveiled at the press conference. Some of the ads are aimed at youthful voters.

One ad, whose Santana soundtrack and attractive actors give it the feel of a rock video, shows a disgusted Latino G.I. bivouacked near a swamp during the Vietnam War, saying: “Man, I didn’t vote for this.” Another Latino soldier replies: “We don’t vote. That’s why we’re stuck here, chapete! If we don’t vote, we’ll be stuck here till the year 2000.”

A solemn voice-over notes: “Over 170,000 Latinos fought in Vietnam. Today over 5 million Latinos are not registered to vote.”

In another ad, a young woman named Hope Sanchez has recently found out that her real name is Esperanza--Spanish for hope. “It turns out my parents were just trying to protect me from all the discrimination they faced growing up,” she said. “My voter registration card still says Hope, but today I’m going to vote for Esperanza.”

The creators of the ads, director Luis Aira and executive producer Jay Sisson of Moving Image, are finishing another Spanish-language spot in which a little boy watches his Latino grandfather read a voter registration form. “What are you looking at, Grandpa?” the boy asks. “Your future,” his grandfather replies.

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Getting Out the Latino Vote

Nationwide, the number of Latinos registered to vote and casting ballots for president has increased in each presidential election since 1976. The Southwest Voter Registration Education Project is seeking to add 1 million more Latinos--half of them in California--to registration rolls by November.

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Source: William C. Velasquez Institute, with some data based on figures from the California secretary of state’s office and county registrars