AAPI Vote 2018: Labor, Democrats zero in on Nevada Senate race

NEVADAAAPI

AAPI VOTERS can play a pivotal role in determining who will represent Nevada in the U.S. Senate. Democrats and union activists believe the Republican incumbent is vulnerable and are increasing their efforts to win AAPI votes.

Asian Americans can make an electoral difference, says Alvina Yeh, executive director of the Asian-Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). Indeed, two years ago in Nevada, the winner of a tight U.S. Senate race there, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, said “APALA and Asian American media were critical” for her win.

Democrat Rep. Jacky Rosen has narrowed incumbent Republican Sen. Dean Heller's slight advantage to a statistical tie, according fivethirtyeight. Both parties brought in their big guns to support their candidates. Donald Trump visited the state last week to lend his support to Heller's campaign and President Barack Obama came in to rally Rosen's backers.

But when the  TV cameras move to other campaigns and the spotlight dims, it comes down to motivating the voter and here is where Asian Americans can make a difference if the parties don't overlook them or take them for granted. 

“The parties are taking Asian Americans for granted. They don’t want to spend the time or the money talking with Asian-Americans.”

APALA hopes to fill in the void by building on its prior “strong election operations,” despite its relatively small size, to expand both Asian Americans’ political clout and its own reach. 

For now, “Nevada is our biggest program,” Yeh says, with 30,000 door-to-door house visits and more than 80,000 phone calls already concentrating on the election. Most of them, as might be expected, are in Clark County (Las Vegas) and its Washoe County suburbs.

APALA's objective, according to Yeh, is to elect a new pro-worker Democratic governor and legislature and to oust GOP right-wing Heller in favor of pro-worker Rosen.

About 9 percent of Nevada's population is solely Asian American and about 1 percent is solely native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. But the AAPI community hasn't been as active or organized as other ethnic groups in the state like Latinos.

"We are so content with doing well for ourselves pretty much. We don't think about really going out there politically," said Vinuya, a Filipino immigrant.

Culturally, many Asian Americans come from countries with less of a democratic tradition and governments that do not encourage political participation, Vinuya told U.S. News & World Report.

"A lot of us come from different countries," said Vinuya. "Some of the countries that we come from, you're silent. You're not allowed to speak up."

NEVADA FACT SHEET

(Source: APIAVote)

The biggest employers in Las Vegas, to no one's surprise, are the casinos. and hotels  You see AAPI workers everywhere: dealers, servers, kitchen staff, hotel maids, to front desk.

Organized labor has had success in recruiting members. Since many of them are immigrants, unions encourage and assist their immigrant members to become U.S. citizens in order to turn them into voters.

For example, the Culinary Workers Union provides free classes to members applying for U.S. citizenship, with its Citizenship Project helping 16,000 Nevadans become citizens for free since 2001, says union spokeswoman Bethany Khan. 

In 2016, the union helped 2,500 people become citizens in time to vote, she says. The union itself is 56 percent Latino and 55 percent female; many of its members work as housekeepers, casino workers or bartenders on the Last Vegas Strip – which itself is near Chinatown Plaza, which features the city's largest concentration of Asian businesses.

Union membership also provides unique benefits to provide upward movement for its mainly minority workers, Khan says, with a pension, free health care, access to a fund providing $25,000 in down payment assistance for housing, and free training for any other job represented by the union – meaning a housekeeper can become a sommelier.

And hotel and casino management are stepping up, as well. Caesars Entertainment, for example, offers employees reimbursement for the application and preparation costs for naturalization (not all Strip workers are members of the union and so not all can get the full-freight assistance the Culinary Workers provide, Khan says). Station Casinos offers assistance as well. And MGM Resorts International, the largest casino operator on the Las Vegas Strip, announced after the Charlottesville neo-Nazi march and deadly clash with counter-demonstrators that it would match all employee donations to civil rights groups including the NAACP, Anti-Defamation League, Human Rights Campaign, Council on American-Islamic Relations, OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, League of United Latin American Citizens and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"There's just a real corporate mindset to value their employees. Many of them are immigrant families that make their beds and do their lawns," says Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani. "When Culinary would bring up the citizenship programs, they embraced it. They want to make sure they are not splitting families up."

Nevada is an example of how political parties and candidates can work with an increasingly diverse electorate. Asian Americans, Latino Americans and African Americans tend to vote Democratic, boding well for the party. 

In Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign brought in celebrities like actress Constance Wu and comedian Margaret Cho to help register voters. Clinton won the Asian vote by nearly as wide of a margin as Obama did in 2012, even as blacks and Latinos peeled away from the Democratic coalition in 2016. 

Among the findings of a recent survey conducted by APIAVote, about 60 percent of Asian American voters say they disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing; 50 percent say they have not been contacted or don’t know if they’ve been contacted by Democrats; and 62 percent say they have not been contacted or don’t know if they’ve been contacted by Republicans.

“We believe that this information is crucial in accurately framing the narrative about the Asian-American electorate and providing detailed insight on how Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders stand on major national issues, how they view our political parties, and more importantly, how they feel about the upcoming midterm elections,” Christine Chen, executive director of APIAVote.

“From what we’ve heard, after two years of anti-immigrant, anti-worker attacks, our community is paying attention – and is not happy about that (barrage), either,” says APALA's Yeh.

AAPI voters showed up to cast their ballots when early voting began last week.
_____________________________________________________________________

Fears arise of efforts to intimidate or suppress AAPI voters

THE 2016 election season is coming down to the wire on both national and local elections. With so much at stake, 245 AAPI candidates running for office and driven by the most contentious presidential campaign in recent memory, the effort to push AAPI voters to register and to the polls has been extensive. 

It’s no secret that in preparation for this election has included many attempts to suppress voters of color—be it North Carolina’s alleged illegal cancellation of voter registrations or the threat of voter intimidation tactics by White supremacists in states such as Pennsylania. Now, officials in historically Republican states are allegedly using harmful—and sometimes illegal—tactics to keep the voters of color from swinging the states blue, reports NBC News.

As the fastest growing ethnic group in the country, AAPI have shown to be leaning towards the Democrats, mainly because of the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from the GOP candidate for president, Donald Trump. The Latino voters, under the same reasoning, have moved even more to the left, according to some studies. African/American voters are almost entirely in the Democratic camp because of the racist views expressed by the Trump.

To counter the shift to the left by voters of color, several states have implemented laws that are making voting more difficult for minorities.

Responding to a wave of new state voter identification and proof of citizenship laws, the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund (AALDEF) will monitor more than 100 poll sites to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act and the Help America Vote Act.

 "In the 2012 elections, Asian/Americans had to overcome numerous obstacles to exercise their right to vote," said Jerry Vattamala, AALDEF Democracy Program Director. "AALDEF volunteers identified mistranslated ballots, interpreter shortages that led to Asian American voters being turned away, and poll workers who made hostile and racist remarks about Asian American voters. 

This Tuesday, Election Day, "AALDEF will guard against the disenfranchisement of new citizens and limited English proficient voters," said Vattamala.

The 42-year old nonpartisan organization will dispatch more than 800 attorneys, law students, and community volunteers to polling places in 14 states and Washington, DC to document voting problems in the 2016 elections.

These polling places are in areas with large numbers of newly-registered Asian American voters; jurisdictions in which Asian-language assistance is provided; and sites where Asian Americans have reported voting barriers or intimidation in recent elections. 

Attorneys will check whether Asian-language voting assistance has been provided (such as ballots, interpreters, signs and voting materials) and whether provisional ballots are offered to voters whose names are not in voter lists. Attorneys will report on whether voter identification requirements are implemented in a non-discriminatory manner.

Vattamala cited a 2016 AALDEF case in which a Texas election law was struck down under the Voting Rights Act because it improperly restricted access to interpreters, Vattamala said he received a complaint this week from an Asian/American voter improperly denied language assistance during early voting in Texas.

Multilingual volunteers will be at poll sites to take complaints from voters about election irregularities and other barriers to voting. Voters can also report Election Day problems to AALDEF's toll-free hotline at 800-966-5946, or by e-mail at votingrights@aaldef.org.

AALDEF is partnering with 121 national and local groups, law firms, and student associations to mobilize volunteers for Election Day.

New voting restrictions in 14 states have had a significant impact on minority voters. Courts have successfully struck down some of these regulations, but the threat to equal access to the ballot box remains. Given that this year’s election will be the first without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1964, it’s essential that voters who have historically faced discrimination at the polls can fulfill their civic duty with in-language assistance or help at the polls and without fear of intimidation.

“As we head into to the first presidential election since 1965 without the full protection of the Voting Rights Act, the 888-API-VOTE hotline is even more critical to protect and serve our electorate,” said Christine Chen, executive director of Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote). 

RELATED:

• Trump, Clinton commercials target AAPI voters
• AAPI volunteers sought for the elections
• AAPI candidates step into the spotlight
• Asian/Americans benefit from the Voting Rights Act
• GOP's new Southern Strategy targets immigrants

"This election hotline not only provides AAPI voters essential in-language assistance, but it also ensures that all voters, regardless of proficiency in English, will have equitable access to the ballot box,” said Chen.

Voting problems are occurring in states like Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia and Ohio. In Texas, specifically, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund won a court case last week (Oct. 28) ordering Bexar County election officials “to immediately remove all illegal voter ID signs that contained false information,” NBC News reports. In addition, the failure for officials to provide bilingual voting information on their websites violates the Voting Rights Act.

Efforts to ensure voter intimidation  or harassment isn't allowed is severely hampered this year because of a 2013 decision by the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court that severely gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As a result of that decision, in Shelby County v. Holder, the Justice Department will send observers only to jurisdictions where it already has court approval, according to the New York Times. That means only seven counties or jurisdictions in Alaska, California, Louisiana and New York will have Department of Justice observers.

“We do not want to be in the position we’re in,” Vanita Gupta, the top civil rights official at the DOJ, said in an interview. “There’s no doubt that we’re going to be spread thinner,” she added, “but our hope and our intention is that we are going to have a very robust monitoring program” on Election Day.

Hence, the need for independent observers and AAPI civil rights organizations are doing their best to step up to the plate.

“Ensuring that all voters know their rights at the polls is critical to their participation this November," said Mee Moua, executive director and president of Advancing Justice | AAJC.  As Asian Americans continue to grow in population, and turn out to vote, we must do everything we can to support their participation and make visible their political impact.”

Unless you've been living under a rock the last year, we've all heard Donald Trump claim that the elections are rigged and have asked his supporters to go to the polls to ensure that nothing "funny" is going on. 

A study by Professor Justin Levitt at Loyola University of the actual incidences of voter fraud from 2000 to 2014 pretty much debunked the claims of voter fraud. According to Levitt, there were only 31 cases of voter impersonation fraud during those years. There were more than a billion votes cast. Actual voter fraud is almost unheard of in the United States.

Despite the debunking of voter fraud, Trump's followers - if nothing else, - are passionate. Answering Trump's call, neo-Nazis, anti-government militias and white supremacists claim  to be sending "monitors" to the polls this Tuesday.

Dale Ho, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. pointed out in a New York Times oped that a Trump supporter recently told The Boston Globe that he would racially profile “Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American.” And he wasn’t shy about what he’d do next: “I’m going to go right up behind them,” he said, and “make them a little bit nervous.”

"We’re witnessing merely the latest round of efforts to delegitimize and exclude minority and immigrant voters with baseless allegations of fraud. But our commitment to universal suffrage demands that every eligible voter who wants to vote has the chance, free from intimidation and harassment," wrote Ho.

"In this election, unnecessary barriers to the ballot and calls to racially profile voters are the real threats. Voter fraud is not."

###

Bill Clinton, Gary Johnson will appear at AAPI Presidential Election Forum, Aug. 12

During the DNC convention, former President Bill Clinton spoke glowingly of his wife, Democratic nominee for
President of the U.S., Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Reprinted from AsAm News
FORMER President Bill Clinton and Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson will address Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) groups on Friday, Aug. 12, at a presidential election forum co-hosted by APIAVote and the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) in Las Vegas.

Bill Clinton will be representing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and APIAVote and AAJA have noted that they've also awaiting word from the Trump campaign for their possible participation in the historic event.

Libertarian candidate for President,
Gary Johnson.

"This tri-partisan AAPI Presidential Election Forum is historic," Paul Cheung, AAJA president, wrote in a post on AAJA's website. "For the first time, the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian presidential campaigns will directly speak at the same event to the AAPI community at large."

RELATED: Top ten reasons to go to the AAJA convention

Rep. Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), and Rep. Mike Honda are also expected to speak at the forum, which is scheduled to take place Friday, August 12 — during the annual AAJA national convention — at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.

According to AAJA, nearly 4,000 community leaders and journalists are expected to attend the forum, in addition to "watch parties" hosted across the country by AAPI community groups.

The forum will take place one week after Hillary Clinton addressed a joint gathering of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Washington, DC. According to NAHJ and NABJ organizers, Trump declined their invite to address the groups.

Hillary Clinton has previously addressed the AAPI community during her campaign. In January, Clinton spoke at the launch of her campaign's official AAPI outreach efforts, AAPI for Hillary, as well as at a gala in May hosted by the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS).
The AAJA convention begins Aug. 10 and is still accepting registration at the door at the Ceasar's Palace convention center.

###