Group boosts voter registration in Hidalgo County

By Jackie Leatherman, The Monitor

A national Latino voter registration group hasn't even met one-quarter of its original goal to sign up 25,000 Rio Grande Valley residents for voting by the Nov. 4 election.

The Southwest Voter Registration Education Project has registered 5,181 voters as of Monday, according to a news release from the group. The effort is part of the group's "My Valley, My Vote" initiative that encourages election involvement. The last day to register to vote in Hidalgo County is Oct. 6.

Alan Fiszman, the project's spokesman, said lack of funding caused the group to scale back its goal to 7,500.

Valley construction magnate Alonzo Cantu donated money to help the group reach the new goal, Fiszman said, adding that if additional donations had been secured, the group could have increased the number of registered voters.

The project enlisted the help of local banks, hospitals, paid coordinators and volunteers to offer registration cards to customers and to attend high schools and community events to solicit new voters.

The group deputized up to 40 volunteers to register voters.

The Hidalgo County Elections Department has deputized 539 residents this year, far more than years past, said Belinda Sagredo, a voter registration assistant with the county.

Sagredo said the group's efforts have helped push the county's total voters to nearly 300,000.

In March, there were 290,454 registered voters.

Presidential nominees have consistently singled out the Latino community by trying to garner votes with Spanish advertisements throughout the past year.

Hispanics are the fastest-growing population in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan political research organization.

Hispanic registered voters favored Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over his Republican counterpart, John McCain, by 66 percent, according to a July report from Pew.

In the Valley, former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., beat Obama by a landslide in the primary.