Los Angeles – Immigration protests that drew hundreds of thousands of flag-waving demonstrators to the nation’s streets last spring promised a potent political legacy – a surge of new Hispanic voters.
“Today We March, Tomorrow We Vote,” they proclaimed.
But an Associated Press review of voter-registration figures from Denver, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta and other urban areas that had large rallies found no sign of a voter boom that could sway elections. There was a small rise in Los Angeles, where 500,000 protested in March.
Protest organizers – principally unions, Hispanic advocacy groups and the Catholic Church – acknowledge that it has been hard to translate street activism into voting clout, though they insist they can reach their goal of 1 million new voters by 2008.
“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.”
It’s impossible to count exactly how many new registrants were inspired by the movement because counties typically don’t ask for race or ethnicity.
New registrations were up this year compared with last year, but they were well below the numbers in 2004, and the increase is not surprising when Democrats and Republicans are struggling for control of Congress.
In Greeley, voter-advocacy group El Voto Latino set a goal of registering 5,000 Hispanics by the 2008 election but so far has signed up only about 300, said director Roberto Cordova.
“It’s a very difficult task. But if it were easy, it already would have been done,” he said Monday. “We don’t consider this event a one-time project. We consider this a process.”
Among the hurdles, he noted, is that Latinos frequently don’t have a tradition of voting, and in general they don’t have as high a level of education as the general population, which is a strong correlating factor to voting.
After launching the effort five months ago, the organization was “pleasantly surprised” to learn that more than 11,000 Hispanics in Weld County already are registered to vote.
“We already have a significant number of voters. They’re already there,” Cordova said. “Now we have to try to make them more aware of the importance of voting or maybe even at a local level get them to vote as a bloc.”
Denver Post staff writer Steve Lipsher contributed to this report.
