Asian Fortune Your source for all things Asian American
By Jennie L. Ilustre
Finally, politicians from both parties are starting to realize the Voter Power of Asian Pacific Americans (APAs), according to top community leaders of national organizations, as well as the Mainstream Media.
Jerry Vattamala, director of Democracy Program, of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), commenting on the recent midterm elections, said in an email interview: “Asian Americans were nearly unified in their support of candidates for the House, the Senate, and their respective governors and were likely the difference in close races in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.”
Even the Mainstream Media has acknowledged this voter phenomenon.
Politico, a leading newspaper in the nation’s capital, noted this in the last presidential election cycle. Marissa Martinez wrote: “…. (T)he Asian American electorate has been growing and playing a bigger role in major political races of late–including in swing states like Georgia, where AAPI voters helped push President Joe Biden and Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to victory in tight contests after concentrated efforts by Democratic organizers.” (AAPI refers to the Asian American and Pacific Islanders.)
Asian American leaders declared that in the recent midterm elections, Asian Americans provided the margin of victory in some battleground states.
AAPI Victory Alliance Executive Director Varun Nikore pointed out: “During the Early Voting, AAPI voters have cast over 300,000 more ballots compared to 2018–an increase of at least 26%. Notably, in Wisconsin, the AAPI vote increased by more than 201% compared to 2018.”
He added: “Despite right-wing attempts at sowing misinformation and racial discord with racist mailers and voter suppression tactics, our community has come out in record numbers to show that we are taking the future of our country in our own hands.”
“Stirred by horrendous anti-AAPI hate crimes and gun violence that have sadly become our everyday reality, AAPIs are harnessing our power by being more actively engaged with our civic responsibilities,” he said.
Remarked AALDEF Executive Director Margaret Fung: “In the last decade, Asian Americans have been the fastest-growing racial group in the electorate, numbering more than 13.3 million Asian American voters. Their support or opposition can make or break a close election.”
Challenges Remain
Despite the Asian American’s growing voting power, however, community leaders stressed that major challenges remain.
Nikore cited “misinformation and racial discord with racist mailers and voter suppression tactics” in the midterm elections.
He also noted that both political parties do not have a strong voter outreach program: “The Asian American and Pacific Islander community has been ignored as the sleeping political giant for way too long. Neither of the parties contact Asian American and Pacific Islander voters during election seasons, but our political power has been steadily growing.”
Politico reporter Martinez wrote that there are “serious structural obstacles” for AAPI voters, “including but not limited to language barriers.”
The AAPI community is, indeed, diverse. It represents over 20 countries and thus, several languages.
Susana Lorenzo-Giguere, associate director of AALDEF’s Democracy Program, pointed out: “Many Asian Americans are first-time voters who speak limited English. They may have immigrated from a country without democratic traditions, like voting.”
She added: “For these voters, language access is essential to their ability to navigate an unfamiliar voting process and to exercise their right to cast an informed ballot. Especially in cities and counties mandated by the Voting Rights Act to provide language assistance and bilingual ballots, it is illegal and simply unconscionable to erect this barrier to vote on account of language ability.”
AALDEF’s Democracy Program Director Vattamala said that in the midterm elections “too many Asian American voters were required to provide identification when it was not required, were sent to the wrong poll site, were not given provisional ballots, and did not have access to interpreters in jurisdictions that were required to provide them.”
AALDEF
Democracy Program Director Vattamala said that in the recent midterm elections, over 550 AALDEF volunteers, including 221 attorneys, surveyed Asian American voters and monitored poll sites in 15 states.
These states were: California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia and the District of Columbia.
AALDEF attorneys and volunteers observed several problems faced by Asian American voters.
These problems, Vattamala elaborated, included voters being unable to overcome the language barriers at poll sites where there were missing or no interpreters, even in cities and counties covered under the language provisions of the Voting Rights Act; HAVA required provisional ballots illegally withheld from voters; poll workers incorrectly requiring voters to provide identification, which unfairly imposed improper eligibility requirements; voters being sent to incorrect poll sites as -they tried to vote in-between work breaks or child and elder care responsibilities; and unexplained and time-consuming machine breakdowns.
Ramsey County in Minnesota is the first jurisdiction required to provide their elections in the Hmong language and is one of the newly-covered jurisdictions under Section 203 of the VRA.
Remarked Vattamala: “As a newly-covered area, it was critical for AALDEF to connect with local organizations, which enabled us to communicate with Hmong-speaking voters and to learn about the problems they faced during this election.”
Vattamala also discussed other steps AALDEF took before and during the midterm elections.
In August, he said AALDEF and community partners secured a Memorandum of Understanding to require Malden, Massachusetts to provide a comprehensive Chinese language election program. as mandated by Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act.
This win, he added, followed a similar one in Hamtramck, Michigan from July of last year, when the U.S. District Court signed a Consent Decree and Order in favor of AALDEF’s lawsuit over the city’s failure to provide Bengali language election information and assistance.
AALDEF attorneys and community partners in Malden, Hamtramck, and other 203-covered jurisdictions kept a close eye on Election Day, he stressed, “to ensure Asian American voters were receiving the bilingual election materials and language assistance they need and are entitled to under federal law.”
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), is a national organization which promotes the civil rights of Americans of Asian ancestry. Founded in 1974, it is based in New York.
By combining litigation, advocacy, education, and organizing, AALDEF “works with Asian American communities across the country to secure human rights for all.”
AALDEF focuses on critical issues affecting Asian Americans. These issues include immigrant rights, voting rights and democracy, economic justice for workers, educational equity, housing and environmental justice, and the elimination of anti-Asian violence, police misconduct and human trafficking.
