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Prop. 200 stymies new voter registration

The fall 2006 elections are testing grounds for two new dynamics affecting Latino voter turnout: Prop. 200 and legal immigrant-voter mobilization.

Political analysts estimate 303,600 immigrants in Arizona are among legal immigrants and children of immigrants (ages 16 to 24) eligible to naturalize, then to vote by 2008. That many Latino voters would have swung the 2004 presidential state election. Bush took Arizona by 210,770 votes.

To that end, immigrant advocates such as the Arizona Coalition for Migrant Rights launched a voter-registration campaign to mobilize a million new citizen voters nationally and 22,000 new voters by the November Arizona elections.

That plan follows the traditional path of sending volunteers into Latino neighborhoods to go door-to-door and stand outside supermarkets and shopping centers to register new voters.

However, some Latino leaders say the traditional voter-drive strategy runs smack into Proposition 200, the state law with a strict requirement of documents to register to vote.

Furthermore, Latino leaders say Prop. 200 has a "hidden agenda" to suppress Latino voter registration drives.

"Prop. 200 has killed voter registration drives as (we) know it," says Phoenix attorney Danny Ortega. Ortega says that Prop. 200 is the wrong solution to an ill-defined problem.

To date, only 10 people have been prosecuted under the law. Four had actually voted.

However, as of mid-August, almost one in six citizens in Maricopa County who tried to register to vote was rejected because they lacked proof of citizenship under the new law. Pinal County rejected about 8 percent, and Pima County 6 percent, again citizens who lacked the documentation. The deadline for the general election is Oct. 9.

Latino and minority voter registration drives in rural Arizona will suffer even more from the "policing" mentality" of Prop. 200, says Coconino County supervisor Liz Archuleta.

"Prop. 200 is not only impacting Latinos, but also Native Americans," Archuleta says. She is chair of the county board of supervisors. "It’s really deterring people who have had a voter registration card for years, like my two tias, who don’t have a driver’s license. It’s actually causing them to not want to vote. It’s forced a policing mentality instead of a helping mentality on grassroots voter registration."

Congressman Raul Grijalva testified during recent Congressional hearings on Prop. 200 in Phoenix that the law "is not about voter fraud. It’s about maintaining the majority through fear and hysteria."

Arizona Secretary of State Betsy Bayless says that Prop. 200 allows any U.S. citizens that want to register to accomplish that goal. The law’s intent was to prevent undocumented immigrants from voting illegally.

Despite obstacles, the drive to convince legal immigrants to vote carries on. Last month Spanish radio personality Renán Almendáriz Coello – known by his DJ name of "El Cucuy" – regaled listeners during a live west Phoenix broadcast for Radio Campesina.

Coello enjoys a syndicated audience that stretches across the country. Instrumental in calling for immigrants to march peacefully in Los Angeles earlier this year, Coello and his El Cucuy Foundation put together "Votos por America!," Coello’ s 10-city bus tour aimed at keeping the momentum going from the marches.

"Politicians live and die by the vote," he says. "By Hispanics voting, they’ll depend on Hispanics. This is going to change America."