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January 23, 2007 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - Today, the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project (SVREP) announced the results of its citywide Los Angeles Community College YouthVote/VotoJuveníl project. In the post-holiday period preceding the January 22 registration deadline for California's February 5, 2008 Primary Election, SVREP registered 1,735 young voters: The vast majority 18 to 29 year-old, Latino, Los Angeles city residents.
"SVREP's YouthVote has now registered nearly 17,000 young voters in six states since late 2006. YouthVote is targeting 335 Latino-oriented college campuses and school districts in nine states with the goal of registering 100,000 voters," said President Antonio Gonzalez.
On-campus SVREP coordinators worked with instructors, young activists, community college staff, and administrators throughout Los Angeles, to appeal directly to students in their classrooms. By making more than 300 presentations to captive audiences of young people, SVREP registered a sizeable number of new voters with a miniscule number of organizers, placed thousands of registration forms in the hands of those unable to acquire them previously because of access barriers, and enrolled an unprecedented percentage of 18 to 29 year-olds in California's "Permanent Absentee" vote-by-mail program.
"Nearly two-thirds of the L.A. city community college students we registered for the February 5 Primary opted for the permanent vote-by-mail option. This is a historic, statistically significant, challenge to the conventional wisdom that young voters are only interested in voting at the polls. The community college population is more racially diverse and working-class than the student pool at four-year colleges and universities. Working-class youth from communities of color are ignored by conventional campaigns because transportation issues, voter intimidation, as well as financial and family obligations are real factors that might keep them from turning-out on election day. Because SVREP's mission is to register and mobilize marginalized voters, it made perfect sense for us to provide students from our communities with the permanent vote-by-mail option. The enthusiastic response we received should serve as a message to all those pursuing 18 to 29 year-old voters: It's time to move beyond just taking young people to the polls. It's time to start also taking polls to them," said YouthVote/VotoJuveníl Director, Unai Montes-Irueste.
Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project (SVREP) is a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to the political empowerment of Latino communities through voter registration, voter education, and voter participation. SVREP was established in 1974 by the late William C. Velásquez to encourage civic and political participation in Latino and other underrepresented communities. Since its inception, SVREP has registered over 2.3 million Latino voters throughout the Southwest and other parts of the country. SVREP has offices in San Antonio, Texas; Los Angeles, California; and Miami, Florida.
The citywide Los Angeles Community College YouthVote/VotoJuveníl project receives partial funding from the L.A. Community College District's Faculty Guild, as well as Angelinos for a Better Future. For more information on SVREP, please visit www.svrep.org.
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© Copyright 2004, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project