Where are our Hispanic Voters?

Our taxes, our wages, our work conditions, our children’s education, regulations on our businesses or our employers, our transportation, our roads…..all of these are examples of items that our elected officials vote on that impact our lives.

We’ve just finished an exhausting election season and it’s time to sit back and determine the results. We see the remnants of elections signs on corners and the piles of mailers in our trash bin. We recall the constant barrage of television ads aimed at telling us negative stories about candidates. Yet – with all of this effort,
over 60% of us who are eligible to vote did not show up.

Who are these non-voters? The Pew Research Center released a report a few weeks ago that told us that nationally non-voters are relatively young – in fact 34 percent of them are younger than 30 years old. Over 40 percent of the non-voters are racially and ethnically diverse like Hispanic or African American. Non-voters are also less affluent. Almost half – 46 percent – of nonvoters have family incomes less than $30,000 a year. They are less educated than likely voters –54 percent of non-voters did not attend college.

I’m passionate about voting. When I turned 18, I registered right away and proudly voted and have not missed an election since. My husband and I are signed up on the PEVL (permanent early voting list) and typically vote within days of receiving it. I’ve stressed the importance of voting to our children. How do we stress the importance to our friends and colleagues? People in our community are financially struggling, many working two jobs. Many of us are juggling children and their needs and other family challenges. Many don’t see the connection between their “vote” and the tough challenges they are facing in life.
An analysis of Latino Voters by Pew Hispanic Research Center showed that when asked about a variety of pressing national priorities, 49 percent of Latino voters identified the economy as the most important issue facing the country, followed by health care (24%), and illegal immigration (16%). The rankings are similar to all U.S. Voters. The One Arizona Coalition, a grassroots Latino GOTV organization states that Hispanics make up around 20 percent of the state’s total registered voters. However, this year, they expect Latinos to be about 14 percent of the statewide electorate.

Why? Pew Hispanic Research claims that the relative youth of the Hispanic electorate has driven down Hispanic turnout. In 2010, 31 percent of Hispanic eligible voters were under 30. We don’t have data on the recent election, but in 2010, one-in-four Hispanics chose “too busy, conflicting work or school schedule” as the reason they did not vote. Nearly twice as many Hispanics as non-voters overall said they forgot to vote, 13.3% to 7.5%.
There isa disconnect between politicians that Latinos see in television commercials and how they actually impact our daily lives. I often hear at the Hispanic Chamber that
“my voice doesn’t matter”
yet, we see races in our community that are called by just a few hundred votes. I hope this is a lesson that every vote matters.
Our Tucson Hispanic Chamber launched a voter education website called “VotaAZ.org” last election season in collaboration with the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry. This season, we received a grant to promote the site statewide and had more than 60,000 website clicks. We continue to bring elected officials and candidates to our members encouraging dialogue and engagement.
It’s time we all do more. This election season has just ended, but we need to continue our work on voter education and increase Hispanic voter turnout. Let’s focus on younger Latinos and those struggling financially. By 2035, a majority of Arizona’s population will be Hispanic. The state needs our largest segment of the population engaged and expressing their needs with their vote.

Lea MárquezPeterson is the President/CEO of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber which was recognized as the 2013 Hispanic Chamber of the Year by the U.S Hispanic Chamber. The chamber and its affiliate chambers servers the business community in the bilingual, bi-cultural region of the Arizona-Sonora border. More information is available at www.TucsonHispanicChamber.org or by calling 520-620-0005.