Will new immigrant voters be election factor?

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - Imagine a pool of eight million potential new voters in this November’s presidential election, an untapped resource waiting for presidential candidates to woo them.

And 680,000 of these prospective voters are in the swing state of Florida; another 140,000 are in what may turn out to be the new battleground state of Virginia, and 80,000 more in another emerging battleground, Colorado.

All three states went Republican in the 2000 and 2004 presidential election.

Wouldn’t John McCain or Barack Obama want to find and woo such potential voters?

These numbers are not imaginary. They are the latest Department of Homeland Security estimates of the number of legal permanent residents, also known as “green card holders.”

They’re not American citizens, but people legally eligible to become citizens, provided they pass English language, civics and history tests, and provided the federal government processes their applications in time for them to register for the Nov. 4 election.

A small subset, but big enough?
The subset of actual voters in that pool of eight million people may turn out to be small. The question is, is it still big enough to tip a few vital states from one presidential candidate to another?

One must subtract from that eight million....

• Those legal permanent residents who choose not to apply for naturalization;
• Those who have applied, but whose paperwork won’t be processed in time for them to register to vote;
• Those who don’t pass the language and civics tests;
• Those who become citizens but choose not to register to vote, or miss the registration deadline, which in many states is 30 days prior to the election;
• And finally, those who, come Election Day, simply don’t vote.

Video Immigration lies low in campaign — for now Feb. 27: The debate over illegal immigration in the United States could become explosive among key voter blocs. NBC's David Gregory reports. Nightly News

While it’s true that some of the biggest concentrations of such legal permanent residents are in states such as California (virtually certain to go Democratic in November), it is the concentrations in contested states such as Colorado that have the most importance for Electoral College strategy.

In Colorado, where Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama will be campaigning on Wednesday, Grace Lopez Ramirez, the campaign director of a non-profit group called Mi Familia Vota, is working to ensure that, at least among Latino legal permanent residents, a significant number become citizens, register to vote, and cast a ballot on Nov. 4.

Since 2007, Lopez Ramirez and Mi Familia Vota have helped 1,200 legal permanent residents in Colorado to apply to become naturalized citizens and about 80 percent of them have qualified.

Naturalize, then register to vote
“We register them to vote at the naturalization ceremony; Mi Familia Vota is at every single naturalization ceremony in Colorado that we can get to,” she said.

Apart from naturalization ceremonies, how does Lopez Ramirez know where to look for eligible people?

Web extra video John McCain on immigration July 23, 2007: Sen. John McCain discusses immigration. NBC News Web Extra

“They come to us,” she said in an interview as she attended the annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) last weekend in Washington.

She said they are prompted to call her group’s hotline by public service announcements on the Spanish-language television network Univision and on the three radio stations that Univision owns in Colorado.

Univision also does new citizen/new voter telethons on its 10pm television news in Colorado.

“Our citizenship workshops are one-stop shops to fill out the application,” Lopez said. “We work with a team of volunteers that are trained to fill out the application, and then they go to an immigration attorney to be reviewed. We make a copy of all the materials that have to be sent with the application including a marriage certificate, etc. We have a passport photographer who takes their picture and we give out information about how to fill out the money order properly.”

Web extra video Barack Obama on immigration July 23, 2007: Sen. Barack Obama discusses immigration. NBC News Web Extra

Mi Familia Vota also directs would-be citizens to English and citizenship classes offered at no cost or nominal cost.

Reassuring the skittish
She said the group tries to reassure skittish applicants. “We just encourage them to come to the workshop. We say, ‘You don’t speak English yet? Don’t worry about it; you have six months to learn. You don’t feel that you can pass the test right now? Don’t worry. We can plug you into workshops that are free.’”

Latinos account for one-fifth of Colorado’s population, but only eight percent of the electorate in the 2004 election. Of course, that’s partly because some of the Latino population is under age 18.

According to exit poll interviews in 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry won nearly 70 percent of Colorado’s Latino voters – which explains why Democrats would profit from an increase in the number of Latino voters in the state. Kerry ended up losing Colorado to President Bush by five percentage points.

Colorado “was the logical place to be, where we can get the most bang for our buck,” said Lopez Ramirez.

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