Amongst many of the issues discussed Saturday during the White House Hispanic Action Summit were the power of the Hispanic vote and the lack of Latino turnout during elections.
One of the roundtable discussions featured representatives from across the state of Ohio, including Cleveland, Lorain, Cincinnati and Toledo. Facilitated by the city of Lorain’s president of council, Joel Arredondo, the voter roundtable discussed how to reach out to young voters, discussed why Latinos do not vote, and searched for solutions to low voter turnout.
Arredondo repeated a statement he made in a morning session “Hispanics need to get involved, get educated and vote.”
Members of the League of United Latino American Citizens (LULAC) from Cincinnati voiced concerns that some Latinos are afraid to express themselves politically, Angie Valencia, a LULAC member sited fear as a main reason for lack of voter turnout. Those from Toledo stated the Latino population is so small; some question whether their votes really make a difference. That argument may be hard to counter considering recent Pew Hispanic Research statistics which show there are about 140 thousand eligible Hispanic voters in Ohio, which makes up 2 percent of Ohio’s eligible voters. READ MORE
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