People Don’t Vote When No One Asks Them To

By Alexander Freitag. –This text is basically talking about the importance of the young latino vote that is crucial in the elections, altough many times they are ignored in some issues. The latino population is actually small but they are growing very fast in the US society and they are becoming obvious targets for national campaings.

The text is showing us some studies by the National Conference of State Legislatures, the percentage that latinos represent in the elections. Later on, the author tells us how his experience was knowing Rey Saldaña at Standford University. He continues speaking about his inexperience in politics but he took some advices with his partner Saldaña from political veterans. The author says that he rapidly understood some important issue at play, in conclution it was said that spending precious money of the campaign on latinos, was a waste of time. But they ignored the "rules".

They had to do anything different to compete because everything was against them. Their oponent was supported by the mayor of San Antonio and they had much more money to do their campaign and easily to get votes.

The author´s and his partner Rey´s campaign target the latinos, instead of putting them away. He explains us how they used traditional techniques to contact young latinos and their families. Technology played of course a important role. They did anything to contact them, for example using facebook and hosted events, everything designed to attract younger residents. He saw with Ray that the concerns of the younger latino voters were not much different from their other citizens and neighbors.

At the end, they obtained the interest of the young latino voters. Another important point in the campaign was to take personal interaction with the neighbors and they increase the voters in the elections. At the end, Ray won convincingly. As in the text says, Latino communities can´t be represented by one voice.

Topics like immigration, health care, unemployment and opportunities are very important for the voters that should be taken by the candidates.

The text conclude with a quote from Willie Velázquez who says: people don´t vote when no one asks them to.

 

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/people-dont-vote-when-no-one-asks-them-to/?ref=politics