In an article in the Baltimore Sun, Kelly Brewington writes,
Although relatively small, Maryland’s Hispanic population has surged in recent years. It increased 41.5 percent between 2000 and last year, a larger growth rate than any other ethnic group, according to U.S. census estimates. Prince George’s County’s population is about 11 percent Hispanic, while in Montgomery, the state’s most populous jurisdiction, Latinos make up nearly 14 percent of the population.
As these percentages line up with the Census figures, I’ll assume that’s where they came from. And according to Census, “Noncitizens who are living in the United States are included, regardless of their immigration status.”
At CASA of Maryland in Silver Spring, O’Malley was hoping to receive a boost from Richardson, the nation’s only Latino governor and a rising star in the Democratic Party.
I wrote about that event several days ago.
Other candidates also were hoping to gain whatever benefits Richardson might bring, The crowd of 150 consisted of many new voters and day laborers, but also a large number of politicians, including comptroller candidate Peter Franchot and attorney general hopeful Douglas F. Gansler.
Montgomery County Councilman Tomas E. Perez, who was forced by a court ruling to abandon his bid for attorney general, presided over the event.
At one point, he humorously dubbed Isiah Leggett, an African-American and the party’s nominee for Montgomery County executive, the county’s “first Latino on the County Council.”
I’d be curious as to how, exactly, Mr. Perez intended that, and what Mr. Leggett thought of the comment.
In addition, Ehrlich sent a letter this week to the chairman of a legislative panel urging a hearing on more stringent identity requirements for driver’s licenses, saying illegal residents are fraudulently applying for licenses.
“I would think, as a nonpartisan observer, given a history of real missteps in his relationship with immigrant and Latino communities, that he would be working much harder now,” said Kim Propeack, a spokeswoman for CASA of Maryland.
However, figures show that neither party has a solid lock on Latino voters. Of the 74,018 Latino registered voters, about 39,000 are Democrats, about 18,000 are Republicans, and about 16,000 are independents.
As of August, 2006, there were 3,105,236 registered voters in Maryland. Using the figures above, Latinos would be about 2.4% of registered voters in the state. According to the most recent Census data, there are 5,600,388 people in Maryland, 5.4% (or 302,421) of whom are of “Hispanic or Latino origin”. Thus, it appears that the general population registers to vote at about a 55% rate, while Hispanic residents register to vote at less than half that rate, around 24%.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there are between 225,000 and 275,000 “unauthorized migrants” in Maryland. Not all of these are Hispanic — nationally, Pew estimates that around 78% of all unauthorized migrants are from Mexico and “Other Latin America”; the rest come from Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere.
If one uses the 78% figure for Maryland (probably a bad figure in this context but it is the only one I have), then the “unauthorized” Hispanic population would be around 60 to 70% of the entire Hispanic population of the State. Making another likely unjustified adjustment, based on the oft-cited claim that Census undercounts Hispanics, one might make a very rough guess that around half of Maryland’s Hispanic population is here illegally. The thing I find interesting about these numbers is that, allowing for the fact that I’ve made tenuous adjustments to very rough numbers, it may in fact be that voter registration among legal Hispanics would be be right in line with voter registration in the general population, something that I would find to be a very reassuring sign that Hispanics who become full members of the community are just like the rest of us. And if you make a further adjustment for the liklihood that compared to what one might find in the general population, a relatively high proportion of legal Hispanics are not citizens with the right to vote but rather resident aliens, then it is possible that voter registration among Hispanics may actually be higher than for the general population.
Leaders said they would continue the fight by registering voters. CASA had registered 500 voters by the primary, and many in the community have said they are worried that Latinos won’t come out to the polls in November.
Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez, a Democrat from Montgomery County, said she was disappointed by low turnout at precincts in her district during the primary.
“The Latino voters did not come out,” she said.
Gutierrez said that on a recent afternoon she did an informal poll at her hair salon. Of the 14 people, all of them U.S. citizens, none had ever voted.
Unfortunately, the Board of Elections doesn’t track voting by race, so it isn’t possible, except perhaps through unofficial, estimated data such as exit polls, to know how turnout among Hispanic voters compares to turnout among all voters. Turnout in the 2004 presidential general election was about 78% statewide. In 2002 — probably more comparable because it was a gubernatorial general election — turnout was lower, around 62%. If there is truth to the claim that turnout among Hispanic voters is lower than turnout for other voters, then it is possible that all this fuss is over less than 40,000 votes, which as much as anything, is probably a sign of exactly how close this gubernatorial race has become.
