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Study: 12.4 million potential new voters could cast ballots in 2008
A new study by the Chicago-based Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICfIaRR) says enough legal immigrants will be eligible to vote in the 2008 presidential election to "substantially and quickly alter the political status quo." They assume the newbies will vote Democrat. There are 14.25 million potential new voters among legal immigrants, including 12.4 million who could cast ballots in 2008, the group said. The study found 16 states where the number of unregistered immigrants who are eligible to vote is larger than the vote differential between President Bush and Democrat John Kerry in the last election. They include swing states such as Iowa, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon and Wisconsin. There are 17 states with gubernatorial elections this year, where the voting potential of 4.25 million children of immigrants "is either large enough to be a significant voting block or where the race is close enough for the immigrant vote to be a determinative swing," the study said. Alex Orozco, an Iowa-based immigrant activist, said the issue is far more bipartisan than the report concludes. "The report blames Republicans for legislative attacks against immigrants, when in reality attacks have come from both parties," he said. Iowa Republican Chairman Ray Hoffmann, an immigrant from Germany who runs a restaurant in Sioux City, said the GOP has nothing to apologize for in the immigration debate. "As a legal immigrant, I understand the importance of the immigration debate and believe as most people do that immigrants need to come into the country legally," he said. I suspect most legal immigrants would agree, and the illegal ones should not be voting anyway. "Illegal immigration is an ongoing debate that Republicans are fully engaged in." There are an estimated 40 million immigrants in the United States, and the study said they could carry significant weight in the upcoming elections if they become motivated. What percent of eligible voters actually do so? Isn't it somewhere under 50%? Methinks the ICfIaRR are getting a tad overexcited... although I look forward to the next few elections with even more interest than before. Posted by: trailing wife 2006-06-30 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=157792 |