The challenge was met and the goal achieved. The Hispanic Institute’s (THI) Latino Voter Registration Project has successfully added 10,000 new Hispanic voters to the rolls in Nevada.
“The fervor and the excitement generated by the past fifteen months of voter participation activity, has obliged discouraged citizens to vote again. Merged with those stalwart voters who always participate in the election process, this now engorged voting bloc will have a say in this year’s election” said THI Board Chair Gus West.
We have achieved this by walking door to door in the Latino community of Las Vegas. Our 20 hardworking and determined staffers, plus scores of volunteers, dressed in their yellow shirts represented THI and were armed with information on the process of how, when and where to vote. We have knocked on 134,634 doors and spoken with 56,888 Clark County residents at their homes. Our efforts included site registrations, along with the Spanish language radio DJ Piolin’s mobile team, with the goal of increasing Hispanic voter registrations. We had a daily presence at local supermarkets in the community and we instituted weekly electoral education classes at our Las Vegas offices.
We also have instituted a voter pledge program where we ask each person that has registered, to commit in writing to either vote early, vote by mail, or vote on Election Day. The purpose is to build a direct relationship with voters and send the signed pledge card back to them as a reminder that they made a commitment to vote.
We are now poised for the final phase of our 2010 Nevada Voter Project; a concerted effort to get out the Latino vote. We have announced plans for our Latino Vote Early Day, a major event at the East Las Vegas Senior Community Center set for Saturday, October 23rd. We will also be visiting these newly registered Latino voters in their homes, encouraging them to get out and vote. Additionally, we will be talking to those Latino voters who normally only vote in Presidential elections encouraging them to vote in this off year.
The Project has received welcomed media coverage in both mainstream and minority outlets, recently being featured in the Las Vegas media of Channel News 8, Univision, Telemundo, and in El Tiempo and El Mundo. We have also conducted radio interviews with Entravision radio stations including Tri-Color 105.1, Maria 92.7, and the local 1340 AM Hispanic program Hispano Concilio.
Xinomara Velazquez Yehuda, is a Sephardic native of the island of Puerto Rico. She served the Peace Corps in Central America and has experience in international relations, she speaks five languages and has traveled and worked throughout the world. She has done extensive work in the advocacy of coordinated law enforcement investigations of missing children/human trafficking cases.
As Chief of Staff of The Hispanic Institute she manages the day to day work in the primary areas of the study of Hispanic and immigrant economic contributions, media monitoring, consumer fraud protection, citizenship education, financial services, and technology telecommunications and the Digital Divide.
Your blog reflects what well coordinated hard work can achieve in the matter of bringing people back to the voting booth. I am impressed at the effort in Nevada and hope you will replicate that in other places with high concentrations of Hispanic voters. We need to have our voices heard. Keep it up.