{"id":19897,"date":"2024-04-02T15:55:17","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T15:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voteriders.org\/?p=19897"},"modified":"2024-04-02T15:57:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T15:57:37","slug":"npr-why-theres-a-long-standing-voter-registration-gap-for-latinos-and-asian-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voteriders.org\/npr-why-theres-a-long-standing-voter-registration-gap-for-latinos-and-asian-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"NPR: Why there’s a long-standing voter registration gap for Latinos and Asian Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BY HANSI LO WANG<\/a>, NRP \u2014 APRIL 2, 2024<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In a pivotal election year, U.S. democracy continues to face a persistent challenge among the country’s electorate \u2014 gaps in voter registration rates between white eligible voters and eligible voters of color.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Why
The Census Bureau\u2019s Current Population Survey asks U.S. citizens age 18 or older whether they are registered to vote in November of every congressional and presidential election year. The federal government considers Latino to be an ethnic category whose members can be of any race. The racial categories above include people who reported their race to be \u201cWhite,\u201d \u201cBlack or African American\u201d or \u201cAsian\u201d as a single response or in combination with other responses. The racial categories of \u201cAmerican Indian or Alaska Native\u201d and \u201cNative Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander\u201d are not shown because the numbers of survey participants were too small to develop reliable estimates.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey
Credit: Hilary Fung\/NPR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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For years, the shares of Black, Asian and Latino citizens age 18 or older signed up to cast ballots have trailed behind that of white adult citizens, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And while the estimated registration rate for Black eligible voters has stayed closer to (and, in 2012, even surpassed) the rate for white eligible voters, the rates for Asian Americans and Latinos \u2014 who make up the country’s top two<\/a> fast-growing<\/a> electorates by race or ethnicity \u2014 have remained among the lowest of the racial and ethnic groups in the United States.<\/p>\n

Based on national estimates from the last two federal election years, the disparity in registration rates between white and Asian eligible voters is around nine percentage points. Between white and Latino eligible voters, the gap is about 13 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Long-standing barriers to voter registration have made it difficult to close these gaps, and dedicated investment is needed to ensure fuller participation in elections and a healthier democracy, many researchers and advocates say.<\/p>\n

“This is something that needs to be paid attention to sustainably all the time,” says Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, director of research at the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute. “It is not something that should be paid attention to only when we are getting close to a presidential election.”<\/p>\n

For some, economic needs overshadow political participation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Many Latino and Asian American eligible voters are naturalized U.S. citizens, and that, Dominguez-Villegas says, can make it more difficult to figure out how to get registered to vote, especially in states that don’t offer automatic voter registration or same-day registration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“They need to learn the ropes of the political system at the same time as they are learning everything else about living in a different country,” says Dominguez-Villegas.<\/p>\n

Dominguez-Villegas, who co-wrote a report<\/a> about the lower voter registration rate for Latinos in the 2020 elections, points out that while more states started allowing<\/a> early in-person and mail voting after the COVID-19 pandemic began, it can be hard for some eligible voters to “prioritize political participation over their day-to-day economic needs” when they’re working lower-wage jobs.<\/p>\n

“There are some types of jobs that might be preventing people from being able to even take time off work to vote. And so when people know that they’re not going to be able to exercise the right to vote, they are a lot less inclined to even register for it,” Dominguez-Villegas says.<\/p>\n

It’s a kind of barrier that Vivian Chang, executive director of the Philadelphia-based advocacy group Asian Americans United, says community organizers have encountered when trying to promote voter registration in and around the city’s Chinatown neighborhood.”<\/p>\n

A lot of folks are just struggling to survive,” Chang says. “Voting is a very separate thing. And honestly, it’s a part of an institution that for them is not one that necessarily values them.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Asian Americans and Latinos are less likely to be contacted by campaigns<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Still, low registration rates among Asian Americans and Latinos should not be seen as a sign of low interest in U.S. politics, warns Taeku Lee, a professor of government at Harvard University.<\/p>\n

“An old narrative has been, because these groups are predominantly first- and second-generation Americans, that they’re more interested in the politics of their home country than they are in the politics of the United States, or they’re groups that like to keep their head down and stay out of politics,” says Lee, whose research focuses on racial and ethnic politics. “I think they are every bit as invested in what politics can do to them or do for them.”<\/p>\n

The shortcoming lies in large part with the country’s major political parties, Lee argues.<\/p>\n

“There’s a long-standing view that you don’t target precious campaign resources towards groups that you consider to be low-propensity voters. And if a group like Asian Americans are predominantly naturalized citizens and a large group of them are potentially first-time voters, then you’re likely to be seen as a low-propensity voter,” Lee says.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0a Pew Research Center survey<\/a>, Asian Americans and Latinos were among the least likely to say that a political candidate’s campaign or a group supporting a candidate contacted them in the run-up to the 2020 general election.<\/p>\n

Voting restrictions can disproportionately affect people of color<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In some states, restrictive voter ID requirements that disproportionately affect many eligible voters of color have also put in place systemic barriers to voter registration, Lee points out.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Latinos and Asian Americans who were eligible to vote, for example, were more likely than white eligible voters not to have a current driver’s license, and Latinos were more than twice as likely as people who identify as white and not Latino not to have any government-issued photo ID that was not expired,\u00a0according to a report<\/a>\u00a0by the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement and the voter advocacy group VoteRiders<\/a>.<\/p>\n