Nudging Hispanics to polls is tricky

LAS VEGAS — Block by block, house by house, Cesar Auyb and Irene Rodriguez are literally changing the complexion of politics in Nevada. But the change is coming slowly.

Since May, the two have been on leave from their jobs in Las Vegas casinos to work as organizers for a union-sponsored, non-profit organization trying to increase voter registration among the state's exploding Hispanic population. On a bright and breezy morning last weekend, each was diligent and cheerful as they pursued potential voters in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood west of the downtown strip.

But in an hour of door knocking, each registered just one new voter. Everyone else they encountered was ineligible to register, many because they had not taken the steps to become U.S. citizens, even though they met the legal requirements.

In miniature, the experience of Auyb and Rodriguez shows how the continuing influx of Hispanics is reshaping the partisan balance across the desert Southwest—and why the transformation may not arrive fast enough to help Sen. John F. Kerry erase President Bush's advantage in the hotly contested region this November.

Slowly but inexorably, activists across the region are moving more Hispanics to the polls; even with the difficulties experienced by Auyb, Rodriguez and other canvassers have, their group, the Citizenship Project, has registered 3,000 new Hispanic voters in Las Vegas this year.

Such hard-won progress is gradually strengthening Democratic prospects not only in Nevada and New Mexico, swing states in recent presidential elections, but Colorado and Arizona, which the GOP has dominated. In all four states, Hispanics comprise a larger share of voters today than in 1992. And they are a reliably Democratic block.

Experts in both parties agree that eventually, this demographic trend could give the Southwest the largest concentration of toss-up states outside of the industrial Midwest.

But Hispanics are still not registering and voting in numbers large enough to maximize their influence. As a result, in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona, Hispanics represent a smaller share of the vote — in some cases much smaller — than their share of the population, according to exit polls on election days.

While Hispanics are growing more important with each election, that means they are unlikely to become a decisive factor in these states until they overcome the barriers to political participation that plagued the canvassers in Las Vegas.