Battle Born state targeted on voter battleground list

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2003 | 9:06 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Unregistered voters in Nevada, especially Hispanics, will be among the main targets of a $25 million voter registration campaign aimed at influencing the 2004 presidential election, the campaign organizers said Monday.

Voices for Working Families will target 16 "battleground" states, including Nevada, the "Battle Born" state, in an attempt to register minority and working women voters and educate them on health care, education and economic issues.

The other states targeted are Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, called Nevada one of the "must-win" states for the presidency, noting that it has decided the last few presidential elections by a 1 percent margin. He said the area's fast growth and added Hispanic population since the last election will be key to tapping into this time around.

"Neither party can take the Hispanic vote for granted," Richardson said, adding that it will take "more than Spanish lessons" for Republicans to convince Hispanics that their agenda support the average working family.

Richardson also serves as the group's vice president.

Using U.S. Census data, the group says Nevada had the second lowest percentage -- 47 percent -- of Hispanics registered to vote in the 2000 election among the battleground states and third lowest number of registered black voters, 51 percent.

Suzy Ballantyne, Voices for Working Families executive director, said the group will be contacting unregistered voters in person and then will maintain a 10-point contact program between the time they register and the election. Contacts can include phone call, e-mails, or even additional personal visits, she said.

It will also encourage working women to take their daughters on "precinct walks" to register voters and to remind registered voters to vote.

Specific plans for each state have not been put in place yet and staff details could be worked out at the beginning of next year, Ballantyne said.

Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO and the treasurer for Voices for Working Families, said the group will be looking at all avenues for fund raising and will not focus on specific candidates but issues instead. She said specific budgets have not been worked out yet for the targeted states.

New federal campaign finance law limits political parties' ability to use donations for voter registration drives and other activities. So the group must be nonpartisan to be legal. Nevertheless, its chairman, Gerald McEntee, said Monday that most of its efforts will go toward evicting President Bush from the White House.

McEntee said organizers will not push for a particular candidate but will "register, educate and mobilize" potential voters on health care, economy and job-related issues and trusts that once they have the information "they will make the right decision."

The group highlights that one in five workers has been laid off in the past two years and 11 million workers want jobs and cannot find them.