At Invesco, Obama To Unveil Massive Voter Registration Drive

Offering a glimpse of Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field tomorrow in Denver, a top campaign official said Obama will announce an unprecedented effort to enroll new voters before the November election. Obama Latino Outreach Director Temo Figueroa said, "You're going to be hearing tomorrow from Barack Obama the kick-off of the largest voter registration drive ever in a presidential campaign.”

Figueroa’s remarks followed a presentation to the Hispanic Caucus yesterday morning in Denver, where he characterized the resources the campaign will put into the program as, "mind boggling."

"Tomorrow (in his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination) you are going to hear Sen. Barack Obama talk about voter registration and he's going to mention some numbers that we're going to be spending on voter registration through the month of September that will be mind boggling. That's going to be a focus of his speech at Invesco," Figueroa promised.

Figueroa said that unlike past elections, the campaign will not "contract out" the job of registering voters.

"But we're doing it in-house. We're doing it with our own volunteers, with our own staff," he said.

"We're already making a dent,” he said. “The numbers are already showing what we're doing in Virginia, what we're doing in New Mexico, what we're doing in Colorado and Nevada. It’s amazing.”

The Obama campaign’s emphasis on voter registration started even before Obama had won the primaries. On May 10th the campaign launched Vote for Change, a 50-state voter registration drive which was intended to lay the groundwork for a general election campaign.

"I believe the only way Barack Obama can win is we have to play in states we normally, as Democrats, never played in, and we have to bring new people in," Figueroa said.

While Obama’s voter registration drive will target Americans all of backgrounds, the Obama campaign has previously pledged 20 million dollars on Latino outreach efforts including voter registration and paid media. The campaign has 400 Latino organizers and is training hundreds of volunteers to increase turnout among Latinos in key battleground states. In New Mexico alone, where an estimated 40,000 registered Latino voters didn't got to the polls in 2004, Figueroa said the campaign has 29 field offices staffed by Latinos.

Stressing the point to the delegates at the Hispanic Caucus, Figueroa gave a Power Point presentation - complete with slides, maps and electoral math - that showed that Latinos can even make a difference in battleground states like Virginia if turnout is driven up just among currently registered voters. But he stressed repeatedly that even in Virginia there is a large group of unregistered Latinos that the campaign hopes to tap.

Acknowledging that many Latinos are still not familiar with Obama, Figueroa told the crowd that starting next week the campaign will go on air with Spanish-language ads in New Mexico, Nevada, Florida and Colorado to present Obama’s message and biography to Latino voters.

Read more at Feet in 2 Worlds, where this post originally appeared.

Comments

[lisaintexas]

An interesting article from The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/20/uselections2008.civilliberties
Here’s a section that really hit home with me .... comments from Paul Weyrich one of the ‘founding fathers’ of modern American conservatism speaking with some 15,000 preachers at a conference in Dallas ....

"Many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome - good government. They want everybody to vote," Weyrich instructed the flock in comments captured on video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw. 

"I don't want everybody to vote," he continued unapologetically. "Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now."

And here comes the key to what will be the most crucial driving force for the entire Republican party effort this November: "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

[INTJ]

1. I'm sure Republicans are fine with as many Hispanics voting as want to -- as long as they are actually citizens with the right to do so. I would imagine their concern is the Democratic party registration efforts, which have historically signed up dead people, ineligible convicted felons, and illegal aliens. Your lashing out is funny considering Dems pioneered voter intimidation in the U.S., if you'll read your history. Since my home state doesn't even require a photo ID to vote, I have concerns that one of the thousands of illegals I see every day has been rounded up to vote, using my name and therefore disenfranchising me, and I don't see you guys being too concerned with that.

2. I like the "used to be Republican" note. That describes me as well. But you guys seem to forget that most southern Republicans used to be Democrats first.

[slemay]

Could we say it this way? The Republicans are afraid of your vote. They're going to try to stop many of you from voting. Don't let them get away with that. It's un-American.

And, please, I hope that the Obama campaign will consider the Hispanic vote in Georgia. North Georgia has many Hispanic voters. It they get out, it could matter here as well.

We also have many white voters who 'used to be Republicans.' They can help, too.

[quest44]

I only wish that more people will come to realise just what a great team Obama has put together to help him in his campaign because all I keep hearing in these blogs is people minimizing his strengths and his great capability to draw millions of people .He has run the best and smartest campaign I have ever seen to date !

[fnygy]

Si se puede!

[maab76]

I certainly hope that high schools are on the list of places to visit. This message resonates with students who want to be involved and heard. Senior centers will be another good place to visit for registration. Many may have moved to a new address without having changed registration. I for one made sure my registration was amended the same day that I moved from the city to the burbs. Certainly college campuses should be a center of this activity. Will factories and other work places welcome these volunteers? I certainly want the houses of worship, regardless of persuasion, to be centers of this activity. While shopping malls often have registration tables for voting, they could be manned for longer hours each day to reach the multiplicity of voter/shoppers who go there.

[sharon40]

to maab76 - All good ideas. But these volunteers need to be in force in the polling places or this will be another Gore/Florida, Kerry/Ohio debacle. Between the rotten voting machines and the rotten Republicans - its not going to be easy.

[SMAGGIE]

Just a note to all those canvasers, don't stop at my house, you would not want to hear what I would have to say.

[RadCenter]

I'm sorry to hear that you will not consider holding a conversation about America's future with someone who may disagree with you. Conversations about our future are the meat and potatoes of democracy. If you only listen to people who think exactly like you, how can you ever learn anything new or be stretched to reconsider some of your positions on issues? After all, who among us has never been wrong about something?

As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be."

Stretch. Learn. Grow. Dare to hope.

[fnygy]

May I suggest a 'no soliciting' sign for your front door to protect you from our growing democracy?

[bobste]

Good approach. there have always been so many voters unregistered (and lost). This election and the current circumstances allows the Dems to capitalize and grab all of those untapped voters. great strategy. great team. a new dem majority.

[schicklett3]

I'm doing my part - I'm talking to friends and relatives and gathering voter support in different states.
Every single vote is needed to win this election.
Lets do everything we can to take back the White House and our country!

God Bless America!

Vote Smart - Obama-Biden '08!

[Roxanna]

This is Wonderful News!!!

That is what has to be done against a political machine that is now in place that could possibly steal votes by the fraudulent electronic voting machines and their flaws!

[Fabienne]

This is the way to win elections.

[Vetiver]

This is wonderful, BUT will those registrations go through once they reach the grubby hands of a Republican secretary of State or whomever handles the paperwork? And if large numbers don' get tossed, will ther be enough polling places set up for all the new voters? And once they go to vote will they encounter some "problem". These are my concerns.
They'll need to register massive numbers to possibly counteract shenanigans.

[RadCenter]

Volunteers are also being trained to staff polling places so that no one who has a right to vote is denied that right. You can be one of those volunteers! Everyone needs to do his or her part this time.

[KarlaElisa]

Agreed Vetiver, we need to ensure the appointed hacks aren't working against us as they have in the past.
If you have any doubt the election was rigged see " Uncounted ". It's a in depth look of past and upcoming problems in our system.

[FatherKindly]

Brilliant, and long overdue. The Democratic Party is nearly as bad as the Republicans at neglecting or taking for granted their minority (soon to be majority) constituents. I think the more Latino outreach they do, the better it will be for all of us.

[MegInPA]

Awesome!! It's good to see so much money being put into Latino Outreach.