Posted on 09/04/2006 10:44:00 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES
Immigration protests that brought hundreds of thousands of marchers into the nation's streets this spring promised a potent political legacy a surge of new Hispanic voters. "Today We March, Tomorrow We Vote," they vowed.
But an Associated Press review of voter registration figures from Chicago, Denver, Houston, Atlanta and other major urban areas that saw large rallies shows no sign of a historic new voter boom that could sway elections.
Even in Los Angeles, where a 500,000-strong protest in March foreshadowed demonstrations across the United States, an increase in new registrations before the June primary was more trickle than torrent in a county of nearly 4 million voters.
Protest organizers principally unions, Hispanic advocacy groups and the Catholic Church acknowledge that it has been hard to translate street activism into ballot box clout, though they insist their goal of 1 million new voters by 2008 is reachable.
It's impossible to count exactly how many new registrants were inspired by the new movement because counties typically do not ask race or ethnicity. But while new registrations were higher this year than last not surprising since Democrats and Republicans are struggling for control of Congress the numbers are well below 2004 and do not indicate the watershed awakening that advocates had envisioned.
"I was anticipating a huge jump in registration I didn't see it," said Jess Cervantes, a veteran California political operative whose company analyzes Hispanic voting trends. "When you have an emotional response, it takes time to evolve."
The emotional response was a reaction to federal legislation that would have overhauled current immigration policy, including the criminalization of the estimated 11 million immigrants who are here illegally. While that legislation is effectively dead this year, immigration remains a campaign issue.
And Hispanic voters remain a pivotal voting bloc, especially with their numbers projected to grow significantly in coming decades. Both political parties would like to capture the Hispanic vote in the same way Democrats have maintained overwhelming support among black voters.
Hispanics have long voted in numbers far below their share of the population, in part because many are under 18 or not U.S. citizens. A study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that while Hispanics accounted for half the nation's population growth between the 2000 and 2004 elections, they represented only one-tenth of the increase in votes cast.
A lack of political experience helps explain why the flow of new registrations has been halting. Some activists acknowledge that their groups have yet to master the nuances of voter registration drives a typically face-to-face task more complex than mobilizing a march. Others complain that political parties with the most to gain haven't financed registration efforts.
"Until the money is spent, 'Today We March, Tomorrow We Vote' will always just be a slogan," said Nativo Lopez, president of the California-based Mexican-American Political Association. "A million new registrations would cost about $10 million. Is anybody willing to pay that? I haven't seen it."
What's more, no galvanizing leader of the immigrant-rights movement has emerged and the largest pool of potential voters young people tend to be the hardest to reach.
"It's a hard sell," said Avelino Andazola, a field organizer with the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project who rounded up only a dozen new registrations at a spring immigration rally attended by several thousand in southern Los Angeles County.
For this story, the AP reviewed new registration numbers in metropolitan areas over several years. The areas included Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.; Chicago; Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz.; Dallas and Houston; Atlanta; Denver; and Jacksonville and St. Petersburg, Fla. The time frames included both January-through-July periods dating to 2004, as well as periods before statewide elections, when registration efforts are most intense.
The data provide a wide-angle look at new registrations, but do have limitations. Any significant shift in registrations overall would stand out, but voters are not specifically identified by race or ethnicity. As a result, an increase in new registrations in Los Angeles County in the 100 days before this June's primary compared to the months before two prior statewide elections cannot be attributed exclusively to new Hispanic voters, despite extensive registration efforts here.
Gains in new registrations were highest in 2004, when political parties spent lavishly to enroll new voters ahead of the presidential election.
New voter registrations increased in virtually every city between 2005 and 2006 but that would be expected because of congressional primaries and elections. The 2006 numbers were below the 2004 numbers in every city, often significantly.
In Harris County, Texas, home to Houston, new registrations through July tallied 55,657 an increase of 16 percent over 2005 but well below the 71,402 from 2004.
And in rare cases, registrations declined. New registrations in San Francisco were significantly lower in the 100 days before this year's June 6 primary than over the same period before a statewide special election in November 2005.
In Chicago and surrounding Cook County, registrations in the first seven months this year jumped about a third over 2005, but were far below the same period in 2004.
The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a leading citizenship and registration drive organizer, has 18 full-time field organizers registering Chicago area voters.
The group's director, Joshua Hoyt, predicted that the impact of such efforts would be apparent by 2008, the next presidential election.
"It's like a good old fashioned Chicago precinct operation," said Hoyt. "The only difference is that our candidate is comprehensive immigration reform."
___
Associated Press Writers Giovanna Dell'Orto in Atlanta, Nathaniel Hernandez in Chicago, Anabelle Garay in Dallas, Steve Paulson in Denver, Juan Lozano in Houston, Phil Davis in Tampa, Fla., and Arthur H. Rotstein in Tucson contributed to this story.
Hard to get a whole bunch of new voters if they're all illegals and not allowed to vote.
But I won't put it past the Dems.
Surprise, surprise...
Too bad the INS didn't set up some roadblocks at those protests... sounds like they'd have had near 100% success rate.
I thought it was hilarious how the Dems and the open-borders-types, at the time of these rallies, went on and on about how "united" the whole "Hispanic community" was...and tried to make everyone think the protests were chock full of LEGAL Hispanic U.S. citizens, marching to show solidarity with their "undocumented" brothers and sisters.
What a pile of mierda. Those rallies should have been a "target rich environment" for the ICE.
Sure, if they get amnesty it might be reachable.
Hispanics have long voted in numbers far below their share of the population, in part because many are under 18 or not U.S. citizens.
Which means...most of them are illegal or the children of parents that abused our system that allows anchor babies. Which means they may be legal, but no where close to voting age as they acknowledge here.
Among those that ARE legal and of voting age there is nowhere near a 90% voting block in favor of illegal immigration. the proponents of amnesty have given the Hispanic community a bad name. A sizeable majority does NOT support illegal immigration, generally the same people that already vote Rep. The issues they care about are marriage, abortion, tax cuts, welfare reform, education, home ownership growth...you know. Typical conservative values.
Make that--
A sizeable MINORITY does NOT support illegal immigration, generally the same people that already vote Rep.
And that sizeable minority generally registers in the 40%.
BUT, on some issues like driver's licenses? They do attain a majority opinion against giving to illegals.
So there is not even a consensus about how far open borders should go among the majority in the community. Despite anything Dowd puts in his polls.
Makes sense. The "immigrants" in question are either illegals or sit-on-your-ass-and-wait-for-the-government-to-do-it-for-yous. Some constituency.
"I wonder if all those FReepers who keep screaming that these are new GOP voters are going to show up on this thread now that the real truth, which many of us predicted, is coming out."
I think they always did. Their branch of the GOP always preferred that the party be the minority party. They WANT the Dems in power. They want their party - the pre-Goldwater Republican Party - back. Nothing else makes sense.
"Hard to get a whole bunch of new voters if they're all illegals
and not allowed to vote. "
You don't need a whole bunch.
Just enough to throw enough races to get AMNESTY in place.
And it doesn't help if some folks don't value their vote enough to
AUTOMATICALLY report voting by a non-citizen
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1695301/posts
This was all over when the poobahs of the Republican Party refused to
intervene when Bob Dornan lost his seat to Sanchez due to (in part) to
votes by non-citizens.
And then they allowed motor-voter.
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