Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service
As the U.S. presidential election approaches, the importance of Asian and Pacific Islander voters has attracted much attention. Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders are the fastest-growing voter electorate. More than 15 million AANHPIs will be eligible to vote on Election Day Nov. 5, including many first-time voters. Speakers at the EMS briefing on Sep 6 discussed mobilization and Get Out the Vote efforts, particularly in battleground states, where AANHPIs could constitute the margin of victory.
Shekar Narasimhan, Founder and Chairman of the AAPI Victory Fund, said currently, there are 17.5 million Asian and Pacific Islander voters in the United States. Among the Asian and Pacific Islander voters in Michigan, the growth of South Asian voters is particularly large.
Asian-Pacific American voters are a key force affecting election results, especially in states including Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and seven swing states including North Carolina. Narasimhan said that many election activities are conducted online, but some Asian voters are unable to successfully participate in online election activities due to language barriers and lack of information. Therefore, he emphasized that candidates must go deep into the Asian community, communicate directly with voters, and understand issues they care about, such as small business development, immigration policy, etc.
Mohan Seshadri, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, said that this year they will once again carry out the largest contact program with Asian American voters in the country. We will knock on 500,000 doors, send one million pieces of mail and make five million phone calls in 22 languages to reach every member of our community wherever they are; and making sure they not only know how to vote in this critical election but also which candidates across the ballot are really going to listen and fight for our communities. There is real power that can be built by making sure that we are mobilizing our community in the 22 languages that our people speak across Pennsylvania for these races as well.
Christine Chen, co-Founder and Executive Director of APIAVote, discussed some of the key findings from the Asian-American Voter Survey, pointing out that the number of voting registrations in the Asian community continues to increase.
In the 2020 presidential election, the turnout rate of Asian voters reached 60%, and 26% of them voted for the first time. She added that the turnout of Asian voters can even determine the final election results. Taking Georgia as an example, in the 2020 election, Biden won the state with a slim margin of 1,200 votes, while 26% of Asian voters were the influence of this group of 9,000 people. She also pointed out that with the popularization of publicity and education, 90% of Asian and Pacific American voters are ready to vote this year.
Dr. Tung Nguyen, President of PIVOT, The Progressive Vietnamese American Organization, said the community’s voting population has historically been the most conservative among API voters.
However, he said PIVOT has worked very hard against rampant misinformation in its communities, both in English and Vietnamese, the negative content of which is mostly spread on YouTube. We created a project called Fact check, which is a nonpartisan information service that has really served as a model for bilingual work against misinformation in Asian American communities.
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