Utah Hispanics urged to make voices heard

"It's something I've been looking forward to for several years," she said. "This will be exciting."

The voter registration effort is nothing new to Frank Cordova, coordinator of Southwest Voter Registration, who has been working since 1978 to register voters in Utah.

"People just think their votes don't count," Cordova said. "That's not true."

Cordova believes that if Latino voters do turn out at the polls, they could influence some races, especially on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley.

However, one problem Cordova noted with registering Latino voters is their tendency toward high mobility. He estimates that as many as half of those voters his group helped register last year will have to re-register this year because their address changed.

Quin Monson, assistant political science professor at Brigham Young University, said exit polling seems to indicate an under-representation of Hispanic voters, even when accounting for those who aren't citizens. Hispanics comprised about 8 percent of the state's population older than age 18 in the 2000 Census.

"I think the truth is a much lower registration and turnout among Hispanics," he said. "They are a very fast-growing part of Utah's population and could play a huge role politically if they were mobilized."

Monson said Hispanics' potential political strength rests in their diverse viewpoints.

"They are more powerful in that they don't vote in a block," he said. "If the perception is out there that their votes can be competed for, they will be sought, courted and wooed by candidates and parties."

Both gubernatorial hopefuls seem to be among candidates reaching out to the community.

"Whether it will have any impact on any races, I don't know," Matheson said of the Latino vote. "The important thing is that everyone become active in the political process. That benefits the community generally."

Huntsman said he's working to mobilize voters, even though "some of them might vote Democratic. My interest in all of this is to mobilize them politically and increase their level of interest in the political process."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com