Boston, Nov. 3, 2014, — With pushes by non-profit organizations such as APIAVote, Silicon Valley Chinese Association (SVCA), The Orange Club, Boston Forward Foundation (BFF) across the nation over past few months, Asian American votes are expected to turned out in record numbers in tomorrow’s midterm election. Their votes will have a significant impact on elections in the federal, state and local levels as low turnouts in the general population are expected.
The APIAVote Young Voter Initiative is supporting seven university student groups and community-based organizations with youth-led voter mobilization campaigns. Grantees are based in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Washington state. They are engaging youth in communities and on college campuses with critical numbers of young AAPI voters.
Health care and economy are the top two issues for Asian American youth (from APIAVote).
Last month, the University of Central Florida Pi Delta Psi Fraternity, Inc. Chapter hosted Culture Shock, a talent show, which drew an audience of 200 students who had the opportunity to register. Across the country, AAPI student leaders from Bellevue College partnered with Washington BUS to register 420 voters.
Immigration reform and education are among some of the issues that Cambodian American youth are addressing with the Angkor Resource Center in Riverdale, Georgia. In Boston, the Asian American Resource Workshop is conducting voter engagement activities with the Vietnamese American community in the Dorchester neighborhood.
At Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, the Inter-Asian Council has collaborated with Asian ethnic student groups and has had the support of the Black Student Union to register over 100 new voters.
Up north, Pilipino American Unity for Progress, or UniPro, has been conducting voter education workshops and registering voters in New York City and surrounding neighborhoods in New Jersey. Through social media, community events, and outreach, our partners have registered over 600 new voters and are currently engaged in phone banking, canvassing, and getting voters to pledge to turn up at the polls.