Many minorities first-time voters

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2004 | 9:12 a.m.

Whether it was the Eminem video, the drawn-out road for family members to become citizens, or opposition to the war in Iraq, many voters in largely black and Hispanic districts said they voted for the first time Tuesday.

Those voters also received more attention than in previous elections from poll watchers, who said they were there to protect the rights of minorities.

Take Juan Iniguez. The 24-year-old North Las Vegas resident said he cast his vote Tuesday morning at Jim Bridger Middle School on 2505 N. Bruce St. in part because of the video for the new Eminem song, "Mosh."

The video ends by telling viewers to vote Nov. 2.

"I was like, if they're all into it, then I should get out and vote. It's an influence," Iniguez said.

Iniguez also said he voted for John Kerry, "first of all because of the war -- he (Bush) never found no nuclear weapons, and he's in it because of his father, and for oil."

That's an opinion that echoes those of the rap song, No. 1 in MTV's list of Top 5 videos since it began airing a week ago.

At the same polling place, Bryant Franco, 18, said the "war made me want to vote" for the first time.

"I want it to stop," he said.

Franco said he was interested in enlisting in the Marines, but that he would wait until the outcome of the election to decide when.

He said he voted for Bush because he thought the president "would learn from his mistakes."

He also said he "had no idea" there would be questions on the ballot and said he "skipped over most of them."

Also at Jim Bridger, Hector Martinez and his sister, Maria Martinez, were voting for the first time -- Hector because he became a U.S. citizen only two years ago and Maria because she just turned 18.

Both said they were Democrats and against the war.

Across town, at the C.V.T. Gilbert Elementary School at 2101 W. Cartier Ave., Rosa Cepeda, 22, was voting for president for the second time.

She said issues that concerned her included the economy, immigration reform and abortion.

She voted for Kerry because "he gives women the right to choose" and supports raising the minimum wage and "speeding up the (citizenship) process" for immigrants. Many of her friends and relatives are immigrants, she said.

At the same polling place, Chester Richardson, who like many of the voters in the surrounding district, is black, said he was surprised when he went to cast his vote in the morning and saw "five white guys sitting at a table with their arms crossed."

Richardson, who said he has been voting at Gilbert for a decade -- and who was also running as a Republican against Yvonne Atkinson Gates for a seat on the Clark County Commission -- said, "I never saw so many white people in that polling place before."

The "five white guys" were poll watchers, from both parties and an independent, nonpartisan group out of San Francisco called Election Protection.

Gary Weiner, an attorney with Election Protection who showed up at Gilbert for the afternoon shift -- and who is white -- said his group and the other poll watchers were there for the first time because "this election is massively important."

"People want to make sure all their votes are counted ... and this election is about people having taken so much for granted so many years and waking up and seeing their vote does mean something," he said.

Douglas Ward, an attorney with Election Protection who was over at Reynaldo Martinez Elementary School on 350 E. Judson Ave., said his group was concentrating on areas where there were Spanish-speaking voters and other minorities, to make sure those voters knew about their rights.

Both Reynaldo Martinez and Jim Bridger schools reported little demand for ballots in Spanish.

Each had one poll worker who was bilingual. Both -- the bilingual ballots and poll workers -- are required by federal law.

Guadalupe Jauregui voted for the first time, in Spanish, at Reynaldo Martinez.

The 38-year-old said she voted for Kerry because "we've seen that not much has been done for Hispanics and there's been a lot of discrimination."

Another minority group in the Las Vegas Valley, though small, has received a lot of attention since Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq -- Muslims.

Aslam Abdullah, director of the local Islamic Society, said there were an estimated 7,000 Muslim voters statewide.

A small phone poll of 55 Muslim voters revealed that 40 percent had switched from Republican to Democrat in recent months, and 85 percent voted for Kerry.

The reasons: the economy, health care, and the war in Iraq.

"They feel Bush went unnecessarily to war," Abdullah said.

One exception to the rash of first-time voters at polling places in minority-rich neighborhoods Tuesday was 81-year-old Henry Daniels.

The black former pantry worker for the Las Vegas Hilton has lived in Las Vegas since he was 17 and said he has always voted for Democrats.

The issues that mattered to him were the war -- "He (Bush) made a mistake," Daniels said -- and Yucca Mountain -- "He didn't do what he said he would do."

Daniels studied the ballot questions and voted no on Questions 4 and 5, which he said were hard to understand because there was "a whole lotta writing."

Daniels, whose license plate read "Jesus," said he wasn't worried about the election's outcome.

"Whatever way God sees fit, that's the way it's gonna go," he said.

"I'm gonna be all right either way."