A growing force

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2006 | 7:35 a.m.

Hispanic voters in Clark County could be important in the upcoming primary election, according to new statistics on registered voters, and several analysts think the numbers may signal their increasing civic participation.

Estimates from the county's election department indicate that one in seven registered voters is Hispanic - a 10 percent increase from 2004. Hispanics now make up 25 percent of the Las Vegas Valley's 1.8 million people, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Registered voters with Hispanic surnames increased from 78,620 in 2004 to 86,963 in 2006, the election department said. Overall, registered voters in the county declined in the same period from 684,313 to 621,221. Those numbers led to a climb in the percentage of registered voters who are Hispanic from 11.5 percent to 13.9 percent.

Analysts say the thousands of area Hispanics registering to vote could be fallout from immigration marches earlier this year or a sign of changes in the Hispanic community. Or both.

Pilar Weiss, political director of the Culinary Union, said that she thinks the numbers may be because of "the Latino population becoming more established and finally having civic participation mirroring their numbers."

The union, about half of whose membership is Hispanic, registers voters but hasn't identified them by race or ethnicity, she said.

Political consultant Andres Ramirez, who ran for North Las Vegas mayor in 2005, said the increase in registered voters may be a sign of the "maturing of the Latino electorate."

He added that there is an assumption that more media attention to immigration has increased interest in voting.

While there has been an increase in registration since 2004, local groups attempting to register Hispanics in recent months haven't had much success.

Four groups took out 5,100 registration forms from the county since January, but returned only 246.

Melissa Michelson, a political scientist at California State University, East Bay, said the groups may have been running up against a large number of ineligible people - either because they are residents, not citizens or are undocumented immigrants.

"And the ones who are eligible may have been politicized by recent events and already registered," she added.

Local activists said they are now interested in trying to get registered Hispanics to the polls for the primary elections.

Harley Shaiken, chairman of the Center for Latin-American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said an increase in the Hispanic vote could have "important political implications (and) shape the debate on a range of issues, including education, immigration and discrimination."

Ramirez said the Hispanic vote may be key to Nevada's bid at becoming one of the early nominating states for the Democratic presidential candidate. The Democratic National Committee is due to vote on adding Nevada and South Carolina to Iowa and New Hampshire as early caucus or primary states. The vote will be Aug. 19 - four days after the Nevada primary.

"The more we show Hispanics and minorities participating, the better it'll make us look for the DNC," he said.

Or, as Shaiken put it, 14 percent of the electorate is certainly a higher percentage of Hispanics than in Iowa or New Hampshire.