Hispanics trail other voting blocs at polls

voting are largely dominated by an older group of white voters,” Walsh said. “Younger voters and immigrant voters do not have a voice in Arizona, so we are trying to lift up that voice to make sure that our politics in Arizona is more representative of our population.”

After dropping the students off in a neighborhood, Oaxaca parked in a shopping complex parking lot. Clipboard in hand, he spent the next three hours walking up to strangers to ask, “Excuse me, are you registered to vote?” If not, “Can I ask why?”

His goal was to register eight voters that evening or convince asmany voters to sign up for mail- in ballots. Registered voters who receivemail- in ballots are far more likely to cast ballots than those who have to drive to the polls on Election Day, Oaxaca said. The work was slow going. Most people ignored Oaxaca and kept walking. Some told him in Spanish they weren’t eligible because they weren’t citizens. Others said they didn’t have time or didn’t think their votemattered. An hour passed before Oaxaca logged his firstmail- in ballot registration.

Lisa Perez, 31, said she registered to vote for the first time in July because she wanted to vote against Trump, whose rhetoric she found offensive to Latinos.

“I thought my vote is going to count this year because I definitely do not want him to be the president,” said Perez, a credit- card financial- services auditor.

The push to register Latino voters in Maricopa County mirrors drives taking place in counties around the country with significant and fast- growing Latino populations. Among them: Clark County, Nev.; Marion County, Ore.; Adams County, Colo.; Kane County, Ill; Hampden County, Mass.; Prince William County, Va.

In Maricopa County, efforts have focused heavily on the disproportionately high number of Latinos who are eligible to vote but aren’t registered, said Ian Danley, director of One Arizona.

Based on data from consulting company TargetSmart, shared by One Arizona, 224,129 Latinos inMaricopa County are eligible to vote but are not registered, and 352,553 are registered. That means about 61% of the 576,682 eligible Latino voters in Maricopa County are registered, compared with 74% of the eligible non- Hispanic whites, according to the TargetSmart data.

A concerted effort is underway to register Latinos who reached voting age since the last presidential election. About 96,000 Latinos in Maricopa County have turned 18 since November 2012, according to Dan Hunting, senior policy analyst at ASU’s Morrison Institute, based on Census data he analyzed from the American Community Survey.

Esther Rivera turns 18 on Oct. 23, 16 days before the presidential election. She registered in July, hoping her vote would help bring immigration changes that will benefit her mother and 21- yearold brother, both of whom are undocumented. Her brother received a deportation deferment and temporary work permit under Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

“The main reason I want to vote this year is to put my voice out there for the voiceless,” Rivera said. “My mother, she cannot vote, but I can, and there ( are) a lot of people out there inmy community who can’t vote, but they want to. … Just one vote can help a lot, as long as we try.”

Irma Maldonado, 18, a nursing student at Grand Canyon University, will vote for the first time.

Shemoved to San Felipe, a small town in the coastal state of Nayarit inMexico, in October 2012 after her mother, who had lived in the USA without documents for 20 years, could find no way to legal- ize her status and decided to “self- deport.”

Maldonado, a U. S.- born citizen, returned in 2014 to live with her sister in Phoenix and finish high school. She plans to use her vote to “say no to Donald Trump.” She’s not sure she’ll cast a ballot for Clinton.

“I think it would be awesome if we had the first woman president,” she said, but she isn’t sure she can trust Clinton after Obama made similar promises to pass immigration changes but failed to deliver.

“She is saying the right thing, but she isn’t going to do anything about it,” said Maldonado, who favored Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.

Many Latino Republicans find it hard to vote for Trump.

Felix Garcia, 34, an immigrant from Hermosillo, a city in the northern state of Sonora across the border from Arizona inMexico, is a naturalized U. S. citizen who owns a construction company in Phoenix.

Originally, he supported former Florida governor Jeb Bush because of his stance on immigration. Now he campaigns to get Latinos to vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson, who like Clinton supports immigration changes that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

“Donald Trump, I don’t like his attitude with the Hispanic community. He is very aggressive,” Garcia said.

Strong turnout by Latino voters could help tilt Maricopa County in favor of Clinton, which would all but guarantee a win for the Democratic nominee in Arizona. That may seem far- fetched, considering the county’s long track record of voting GOP in presidential elections. Even Bill Clinton, the last Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona in 1996, lost Maricopa County to Republican Bob Dole.

But a statewide Arizona Republic/ Morrison/ Cronkite News poll showed the race in Maricopa County between Clinton and Trump too close to call. The poll, conducted Aug. 17- 31, found Clinton leading Trump 34.2% to 33.2% among likely voters, well within the poll’smargin of error.

In such a tight race, Latino voter turnout could make the difference.