{"id":6159,"date":"2024-03-03T09:28:45","date_gmt":"2024-03-03T09:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6159"},"modified":"2024-03-12T09:32:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T09:32:12","slug":"how-community-votes-make-political-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6159","title":{"rendered":"How Community Votes Make Political Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/span>Selen Ozturk<\/a><\/p>\n

As the U.S. electorate grows more diverse, mobilizing historically marginalized voters is more politically decisive than ever this election year.<\/p>\n

At a Friday, February 23 Ethnic Media Services briefing, voter engagement experts discussed how organizing community voters can make political change.<\/p>\n

What community votes can win<\/h2>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to affect social change, it has to be through the people that are most affected by it to begin with,\u201d said Ernie Serrano, Integrated Voter Engagement Organizer with\u00a0Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SCOPE first formed to mobilize South Los Angeles communities after the Rodney King riots in 1992, Serrano explained, \u201cbecause the powers in our communities weren\u2019t investing in us. There was heavy redlining, policing,\u201d failed responses to the crack epidemic and corporate and environmental exploitation. \u201cWe wanted to have a say in how our elected leaders were governing us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because communities of color are often disenfranchised, he continued, many members are not as politically informed, and so \u201cthe grassroot effort to have a voice at the table requires telling our community why it\u2019s important to vote, showing what it can win.\u201d<\/p>\n

One major recent victory by SCOPE involved the 2022 election of LA Mayor Karen Bass, who gave up her congressional seat to run a grassroots campaign against billionaire Rick Caruso.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you have a grassroots leader, with only $10 million in budget, against someone who spent $109 million dollars with big business support \u2026 recreating her through ads to the point that people thought she was an entirely different person than who she was,\u201d Serrano said. \u201cThese are odds that, historically, people don\u2019t beat, and we won.\u201d<\/p>\n

How was it possible?<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he didn\u2019t have a concept of what it meant to reach the demographic that he needed to reach in order to gain the seat,\u201d explained Serrano. \u201cIf he was really interested in bettering conditions in LA like homelessness and environmental issues, he would have invested in LA residents \u2026who are often disengaged from the voting process because they don\u2019t believe the system was designed for us, that it\u2019s already rigged for the powers that be. But that\u2019s not necessarily true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Empowering voters by counting voters<\/h2>\n

The power of community voting \u201cstarts with the Census,\u201d said Debbie Chen, Houston-based community activist and Executive VP with the\u00a0National OCA, Asian Pacific American Advocates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not simply \u2018Come election time, go vote,\u2019 because redistricting is actually the best way to conduct mass voter suppression,\u201d she explained. \u201cThe Census determines who gets counted for redistricting, which determines who gets to govern, vote and spend in certain areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Redistricting is the process through which congressional districts are drawn every ten years, following the decennial Census count.<\/p>\n

For the average first-generation immigrant, \u2018The importance of being counted,\u2019 that message alone doesn\u2019t necessarily resonate,\u201d Chen continued. \u201cBut when you approach it from the perspective that being counted lets you decide who gets to spend your tax dollars, how much of your money comes back to your area to get roads built, schools, nice sidewalks as opposed to ditches\u00a0\u2014 everybody understands money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people in the new immigrant AAPI community don\u2019t realize how your vote gives you power to influence your community this way,\u201d she added. Although AAPI are the\u00a0fastest-growing<\/a>\u00a0U.S. ethnic group, \u201cneither party has traditionally invested in outreach to the AAPI community, despite the fact that in many areas our vote can make that margin of difference in closer races.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Texas, for instance, eligible AAPI voters grew by\u00a074%<\/a>\u00a0between 2010 and 2020, compared to a 21% increase in overall eligible voters statewide.<\/p>\n

The power of voting lies in \u201cmaking sure that we get counted, that our influence over our community doesn\u2019t get diluted through racial gerrymandering,\u201d Chen said. \u201cIt should come down to who can best invest in where we live.\u201d<\/p>\n

The value of community votes<\/h2>\n

\u201cPolitics is local,\u201d said Anneshia Hardy, executive director of\u00a0Alabama Values<\/a>. \u201cThe message of \u2018If your vote wasn\u2019t important, they would stop it\u2019 doesn\u2019t ring true because of these coordinated efforts to dilute our vote, the value of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

White men, for example, are 30% of the population but hold 62% of U.S. elected offices, she said \u2014 often as a result of incumbency and racial redistricting such as in the\u00a0Milligan<\/a>\u00a0fair mapping case, which Alabama Values helped win last year in favor of two newly redrawn majority-minority districts reflecting the state\u2019s growing Black electorate.<\/p>\n

Although white voters are historically more likely to turn out than other ethnic groups, ethnic voters make up increasingly decisive electorates in battleground states, while the share of non-Hispanic White eligible voters has been\u00a0declining<\/a>\u00a0since 2000, according to Pew.<\/p>\n

That electoral gap also extends across generations, with Alabamians under 45 comprising 1.7 million of the voting population, but only half of those voters cast ballots, compared to 70% of 2.1 million voters over 45.<\/p>\n

In total, 2.3 million Alabamians voted \u2014 a record number in terms of volume, but one which represented only 62% of voters statewide, with 1.4 million eligible Alabamians not having voted.<\/p>\n

How do we show the value of community votes to those who do not engage?<\/p>\n

\u201cBy helping voters see themselves in the solution to issues that matter to them \u2014 social justice, health care, education,\u201d said Hardy. \u201cWho controls the narrative has power over tangible community outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe notion that voters of color abstain because they feel their vote doesn\u2019t matter fails to acknowledge the deeper issue at play,\u201d she continued. \u201cMany of these voters are disappointed not because they undervalue their vote, but because they see unkept political promises that persist despite their vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, Alabama Values is battling\u00a0Senate Bill 1<\/a>, a piece of state legislation that makes absentee ballot voting a felony \u2014 worsening the ability of many Alabamians, particularly those of color living in remote areas, to vote at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in the midst of trying to get people to vote, we\u2019re fighting to ensure that everyone has access to the ballot at all,\u201d added Hardy. \u201cTo engage these voters, particularly voters of color, we must address their legitimate concerns about the democratic process by working to make it more responsive to what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: Published without changes from Ethnic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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