What prevents Latinos in Arizona from voting in midterm elections?

By Trend

More than 45 percent of eligible Latino voters in Arizona haven’t registered for voting in the midterm elections planned for November 8.

Carolina Rodriguez-Greer, Arizona State Director of Mi Familia Vota, national civic engagement non-profit organization, told Trend on the sidelines of the briefing on midterm elections for the international reporters in Phoenix.

“When we talk to voters about helping to register, they express to us such a gratitude. Because, they say the process is confusing, they don’t know where to go. We bring a lot of information in Spanish, in particular here in Arizona. People are very busy, they work two or three jobs. Don’t blame them for not having the capacity to put food on the table to think about voter registration, next election. One of the challenges in the U.S. is that we have 50 states and depending on the state, access to voting, voter registration may be significantly different. We also vote during a week when people work,” she said.

Rodriguez-Greer believes that midterm elections are not so popular, because they are not presidential elections.

Arizona’s population is 7,276,316 with 2,306,592, or 31.7 percent accounting for Latinos.

The total number of voters registered in Arizona stands at 4,545,950 of whom 857,207 are Latino voters accounting for 19 percent of Arizona’s registered voters.

The percentage of registered and unregistered Latino voters in Arizona is 54.8 and 45.2 percent, respectively.

Around 1,530,910 Latinos in Arizona are at the voting age.

“But no matter what kind of election is that we should participate. I don’t think people don’t want to vote, they are busy making money and we want to bring it to the top of the priorities so that everyone has an opportunity to vote and defend democracy in this country. I believe that we will see higher numbers of voting in these midterm elections, because people want to make sure that their voice is heard,” she said.

Rodriguez-Greer warned that democracy is under threat in America, specifically, here in Arizona.

“Arizonan people want to see governors who will make things better for all Arizonans, not selective. My recommendation to anybody who wants Latinos to vote for them is to be little bit deeper, do more work. It is unfortunate that in 2022 we have to use door-knocking to reach voters,” she added.