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Alliance Registers Half-Million New Immigrant Voters, 128,000 in Battleground States

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Get ready, poll workers.

Thanks to the hard work of the dozens of organizations that form the We Are America Alliance, you should expect a flood of fresh faces on November 4th.

The We Are America Alliance and its member groups have just announced their success in registering 500,000 new voters. For many of these half-million voters, immigration reform is a top priority, as it was in 2006 and 2007, when immigrants and advocates flooded the streets in the largest marches in our nation’s history. Since the failure of reform, stepped-up immigration raids and anti-immigrant campaign rhetoric are serving only to drive many new voters to the polls, to vote for the kind of country they wish to live in.

But members of the Alliance aren’t taking this for granted. They will continue contacting these new voters to take part in early voting or to get to the polls on Election Day. Through canvassing, mailings, and phone calls, the Alliance will ensure that more than a million new Latino, Asian, and immigrant voters cast ballots come November.

All of this momentum is poised to play a key role in the upcoming election. Alliance partners registered more than 128,000 new voters in three states, including 37,349 in Colorado, 32,481 in Nevada and 58,217 in New Mexico. What do these three states have in common?

Can you say battlegrounds, baby?

Should these states determine a close runoff, it’s quite possible that new immigrant voters could choose our next president. And the candidates are paying attention.

According to a Catholic News Service story, “That’s made [Latinos] a particular target of the presidential campaigns, which have waged fierce battles for their vote in Spanish-language media, much of it focused on immigration policy.”

So what do these freshly minted voters think of their role? Many of them, including Carmen Gutierrez of California, are excited. She recently attended a voter fair, where she learned more about ballot measures and practiced voting on a mock ballot.

“There are a lot of Latinos here,” Gutierrez, who is originally from Mexico, told the Los Angeles Times. “We have to make our voices heard.”