Poll: Georgia's Asian American voters decisively cast their ballots for Warnock

Sen. Raphael Warnock

While the final talley for Georgia's US Senator seat was close by a 2% difference, Asian American voters overwhelmingly cast their ballots in favor of incumbent US Senator Raphael Warnock in the runoff election according to exit polls conducted by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund

Asian American voters’ support for Warnock over football legend Herschel Walker in Georgia's runoff grew even stronger in the month since the Nov. 8 election and the runoff election on Dec. 6. In theNovember 8 General Election, 60.1% voted for the incumbent. For the Dec.  6 runoff, Warnock captured 78% of the Asian American vote.

“The Senate runoff in Georgia was a critical election, not just for the state but also for the entire country. Georgians have given Senate Democrats a 51 to 49 majority that will affect our national policy for the coming years. For Asian American voters in Georgia, health care and specifically abortion access proved to be a critical issue strongly influencing their vote,” said Margaret Fung, executive director of AALDEF.

AALDEF released results Thursday of its nonpartisan, multilingual survey of 337 Asian American voters.

The overwhelming support from Asian American voters may have tilted the final results in Warnock's favor. Among the give Asian American ethnicities polled, Bangladeshi, Asian Indian and Vietnamese were adamant who they preferred. South Asians are the largest Asian group in the state.

Polling was conducted at five key sites for Asian American voters in DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Voters were surveyed in English, as well as 4 Asian languages: Bengali, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese.

Volunteers also monitored for compliance with the language assistance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, the Help America Vote Act, and to guard against anti-Asian discrimination and intimidation.

AALDEF attorneys and volunteers observed several problems on election day, such as voters being redirected to different poll sites, being sent to incorrect poll sites, and  voters not being provided provisional ballots.

Other results of the exit poll included:

The five largest Asian American national origin groups in the survey supported  Warnock:

• Bangladeshi: 96.3% Warnock, 3.7% Walker

• Asian Indian: 83.3% Warnock, 14.1% Walker

• Vietnamese: 80.0% Warnock, 20.0% Walker

• Korean: 64.8% Warnock, 35.2% Walker

• Chinese: 61.5% Warnock, 38.5% Walker

Warnock's support was strongest among all age groups. Younger voters were stronger in their support of Warnock and his support tapered off only slightly among older voters.

• Asian American voters aged 18-29 voted Warnock 92.0% and Walker 6.7%.

• Asian American voters aged 30-39 voted Warnock 87.5% and Walker 12.5%.

• Asian American voters aged 40-49 voted Warnock 84.9% and Walker 15.1%.

• Asian American voters aged 50-59 voted Warnock 66.1% and Walker 33.9%.

• Asian American voters aged 60-69 voted Warnock 71.9% and Walker 25.0%.

• Asian American voters aged 70 and over voted Warnock 37.5% and Walker 62.5%.

“Asian Americans were nearly unified in their support of Raphael Warnock for Senate and were likely the difference in this extremely close election. Unfortunately, too many Asian American voters were sent to the wrong poll site and were not given provisional ballots,” said Jerry Vattamala, director of AALDEF’s Democracy Program.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Justice Department files lawsuit saying Texas' redistricting plan that discriminates against voters of color

SCREEN CAPTURE / MSNBC

Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta announces the DOJ lawsuit vs. Texas redistricting plan.

Texas' plan for redrawing Congressional district boundaries is being challenged by the Department of Justice in a lawsuit filed Monday that claims minority voters will be denied equal opportunity to seek representation in political offices.

"Texas’ 2021 redistricting plans were enacted through a rushed process, with minimal opportunity for public comment, without any expert testimony, and with an overall disregard for the massive minority population growth in Texas over the last decade," said U.S. Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta in a press conference.

Texas’ population grew by 4 million people from 2010 to 2020, and 95% of that growth came from minority populations. As a result of the population growth, the state gained two new Congressional seats, both of which were designed to give White voters a majority," said Gupta, one of the highest ranking Indian Americans in the Biden administration.

"Despite this significant increase in the number and proportion of eligible Latino and Black voters in Texas, the newly enacted redistricting plans will not allow minority voters an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice," said Gupta. "Instead, our investigation determined that Texas’ redistricting plans will dilute the increased minority voting strength that should have developed from these significant demographic shifts."

The complaint asks the court to prohibit Texas from conducting elections under the challenged plans and asks the court to order Texas to devise and implement new redistricting plans that comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The complaint also asks the court to establish interim plans before the 2022 Midterm elections pending a lawful state redistricting, a process that could extend beyond the Midterms.

The DOJ suit is the second legal challenge to Texas attempt to minimize the impact of voters of color. The Fair Maps Texas Action Committee filed a legal challenge on behalf of a coalition of voting and civil-rights groups and individual voters, including the Asian American Legal and Education Fund (AALDEF).

The AANHPI population is the fastest-growing racial or ethnic voting group in the state, according to the Census. Over the past decade, AANHPI voters have increased from 950,000 in 2010 to nearly 1.6 million in 2020.

“Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are the fastest growing racial group in America and especially in Texas. Together with their Black and Latino neighbors, AAPIs have already demonstrated that they vote together. It is clear that these new legislative district lines were drawn to intentionally divide these rapidly growing AAPI communities and prevent them and other communities of color from electing candidates of their choice. This continues Texas' shameful history of discriminating against voters of color,” Jerry Vattamala, Director of the Democracy Program with AALDEF.

Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Texas has not gone a single decade without a federal court finding that the state had violated federal protections for voters of color. 

In 2021, Texas lawmakers’ voting plans for State House districts (H2316), State Senate districts (S2168), and Congressional districts (C2193), repeat the Legislature's past mistakes. The complaint alleges that each plan discriminates against voters of color by failing to create coalition districts mandated by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, intentionally dividing voters of color into several districts, and otherwise diluting the voting power of people of color. 

As the DOJ complaint documents, in areas like Fort Bend County, a diverse region near Houston, Texas, AAPI communities are cracked “with almost surgical precision,” depriving them of an equal opportunity to elect their candidates of choice.

In Congressional District 22 where a growing and active AAPI electorate lives in suburban Houston, an Indian American candidate, Sri Preston Kulkarni, almost defeated the Republican incumbent. Under the new map, the AAPI neighborhoods have been divided up into several districts or added to larger rural districts where White voters are the majority.

“These lines are essentially silencing” minority voters, Vattamala asserted.

“Surgically removing these communities and adding them with White, rural counties to essentially dilute their vote.”

“This brazen attack on the voting rights of people of color in Texas is a fundamental attack on democracy and violates the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution," said AALDEF's Vattamala. "All Texans should be appalled at these blatantly discriminatory district lines.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.

AALDEF exit poll: Asian Americans vote 2-to-1 for Biden

Correction: Nov. 5, 10:30 a.m. for headline fix

Two-thirds of Asian American voters cast their ballots for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Donald Trump received only 30% of the Asian American vote according to an exit poll by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The AALDEF reelased preliminary results of its nonpartisan multilingual exit poll found that Asian Americans favored Biden over Donald Trum by a margin of 67% to 30%. They also favored Democratic candidates in close races in Georgia and supported Democratic candidates in Senate races in Maie, Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia

“With record voter turnout in the midst of a pandemic, the Asian American Exit Poll provides an important snapshot of the growing Asian American electorate, including their party affiliations and issues influencing their votes,” said AALDEF executive director Margaret Fung.

The exit poll also learned that 30% of the Asian American voters were first-time voters, the result of massive voter registration drives by a host of AAPI communityi agencies and the two major parties.

AALDEF volunteers, including attorneys, law students, community-based organizations, bar associations, student organizations, and community advocates, surveyed Asian American voters at 91 poll sites in 13 states and Washington, DC.

AALDEF also dispatched teams of attorneys and law students to monitor poll sites in California (San Jose), Massachusetts (Boston, Dorchester, Lowell, Malden, and Quincy), New Jersey (Bergen and Middlesex Counties), New Mexico (Albuquerque), New York City (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens) and Pennsylvania (Bucks County, Delaware County and Philadelphia) for compliance with the language assistance provisions of the Voting Rights Act and to guard against anti-Asian discrimination and intimidation.

More details of the exit poll will be released soon after all the ballots are tabulated. However, other initial highlights of the survey included:

• Party Affiliation: 56% Democrat, 16% Republican, 25% Not Enrolled, 4% Other
• Vote for U.S. Senate: 65% Democrat, 30% Republican, 2% Other, 4% Did not vote
• Gender: 53% Female, 47% Male, 1% Non-Binary

AALDEF Democracy Program Director Jerry Vattamala said: “In all states, a large percentage of the Asian American voters were not enrolled in a political party. Asian Americans, now the nation’s fastest growing racial minority group, could play a critical role in determining electoral outcomes in 2020 – particularly in Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania.”

AALDEF

Volunteers conducted the exit poll in several Asian languages.

AALDEF attorneys and volunteers also observed a number of voter problems:

Georgia

A computer glitch appeared to show that several Asian American voters had voted during early voting, when they had not, preventing the voters from voting by regular ballot at the Oakcliff Elementary School poll site in DeKalb County, GA.

Another apparent computer glitch resulted in several voters, after waiting in line, learning that the polling place to which they were designated the night before (where they had voted in prior elections) had been changed to a different polling place and were turned away.

Pennsylvania

Voters overheard a poll worker make an Anti-Asian comment about an Asian American voter at the Reed Street Presbyterian Apartments poll site in Philadelphia.

After waiting in line at Mastery Thomas Charter School in Philadlephia, a Middle Eastern couple seeking to vote in person was told to go back home, return to the polling place and surrender their envelope and mail-in ballot. The couple complied and sought to vote by regular ballot after their mail-in ballot was spoiled by the poll workers. However, they were turned away without being allowed to vote, and told to “come back in four years.”

New York

An Asian American voter was directed by poll workers to another site, only to be told at the second site that she was not registered and was not allowed to vote at JHS 189 In Flushing, Queens.

In Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, poll monitors observed missing Asian-language signage and interpreters that are required under the federal Voting Rights Act for the following languages: Chinese, Korean, Bengali, and Hindi. Poll sites in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and multiple poll sites in Queens opened late, and some poll sites were missing poll site supervisors.

New Jersey

In Middlesex County and Bergen County, Gujarati and Korean bilingual poll workers and translated signage were missing at multiple poll sites.