nyic report on immigrants vote 2012 civic engagement campaign

Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign Report

new york immigration coalition

he New York Immigration Coalition is proud to have coordinated a powerful and effective statewide civic participation campaign in 2012. Since starting civic engagement programs in 1998, NYIC

members have been able to register over 300,000 New Americans to vote; to contact close to 1 million voters through personal interactions, educational, and outreach materials; and enrich civic culture within diverse immigrant communities.

The NYIC’s civic participation program was founded on the premise that immigrant communities cannot effectively protect their interests until they become a force at the ballot box. Since its inception, campaign partners have utilized this multi-faceted non-partisan initiative to break through the racket of electoral politics and inform immigrant communities of their rights and the issues affecting all New Yorkers. Each year, NYIC members and partners fan out across their communities and talk to thousands of their neighbors about their work, in the process recruiting new members and raising their profiles as trusted community resources.

We are pleased to report that due to the incredible commitment of our members and partners, we have successfully exceeded our projected goals for the 2012 election cycle with over 11,000 New Americans registered to vote and over 42,000 voters contacted through the campaign, 12,000 more than we originally thought possible! In addition to the tangible numbers, we were able to deepen partner civic engagement programs and help augment the leadership of our participant groups in their communities. The Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign energized the immigrant community with its focus of multi-ethnic, collaborative empowerment of the varied immigrant communities of New York. The NYIC remains grateful for the support of our funders and other supporters, without whom this important work would not have been done in 2012, adversely affecting thousands of New Americans and aspiring citizens in New York.

This report reflects just one program of the incredible and varied work done by New York Immigration Coalition members in 2012. It is through the collaborative efforts of the over 200 members of the Coalition that New York’s immigrant communities are able to have the information and access to influence local, state, and national policy and advocate for a better New York for all.

T

...registered 300,000 New

American voters since 1998...

“The immigrant voice is pivotal in New York and it is our collective responsibility to empower our communities during the election process.” Almirca Santiago

Director of Programs and DevelopmentNorthern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights

CAMPAIGN STRUCTUREThe Immigrants Vote! 2012 campaign was struc-tured along a hub model developed by the NYIC over the last 12 years. Each partner group made a commitment to a specific outreach goal prior to the general election along with events, trainings, and voter registration activities. The NYIC provided fi-nancial support, access to the State Voices table and Voter Activation Network data-management software, individualized campaign planning and campaign management support, online coordina-tion, a library of resources, and volunteer support.The 10 groups recruited for the campaign repre-sented a wealth of geographic, and language diver-sity and an ability to deliver results.

In addition to NYIC staff – Chung-Wha Hong, ex-ecutive director and Karen Kaminsky, deputy executive director– prior staff and consultants who specialized in electoral and outreach work were brought on-board to help co-ordinate the participant organizations.To develop a cohesive structure, throughout the campaign sea-son partner groups had coordination meetings with NYIC staff and consultants to strategize, share in-formation, and discuss successes and challenges. In this way the campaign was able to create a high quality, coordinated, sophisticated voter outreach strategy to maximize its impact. VOTER REGISTRATIONThe NYIC has led the oldest courthouse-based im-migrant voter registration project in the country since 1998. During the last 14 years, NYIC partners registered over 300,000 New Americans to vote at natu-ralization swearing in ceremonies, pioneering the courthouse method that has been taken up by groups around the country. This volunteer run effort has continued to be the most effective method of registering large numbers of New Americans at one time, on average registering 150 people a day in a yearlong, ongoing effort.

In 2012, partner groups Minkwon Center for Community Action and La Fuente took the lead in providing vol-unteers for voter registration in the court, delivering the majority of NYIC voter registration numbers. Their com-mitment, with strong support from the NYIC and other partner groups, has allowed the campaign to register 11,520 New American voters in 2012 and pass the 300,000 registered voter mark for the program!

LOCAL, REGIONAL, AND NATIONAL PARTNERSHIPSThe NYIC works with the New York State Civic Engagement Table, a collaborative effort of 501c3 organizations in New York State, as a founding steering committee member. Through the Table we were able to provide partner groups with access to the Voter Activation Network (VAN), voter lists, outreach tools, as well as technical assis-

tance and training from table staff. The NYIC’s National partnership with the Center for Community Change brought the Campaign much valued technical support from their National Electoral Staff, coordination with other Na-tional and Regional partners, along with valuable coordination tools and online reporting mechanisms. Conferences sponsored by Four Freedoms Fund, National Partnership for New Ameri-cans, and Fair Immigration Reform Movement brought needed information and knowledge exchange with groups throughout the country engaged in similar work.

WWW.WHOISONTHEBALLOT.ORG Who’s on the Ballot is a not-for profit project of the School of Inter-national and Public Affairs at Columbia University. www.whosonthe-ballot.org is an easy to use website and mobile app that provides NYC residents with the location of polling places, information on candidates, sample ballots, and voter registration information. The project is based on the fact that the more informed we are, the more likely we are to participate in elections. The mission is to provide voters with the tools they need to make an informed choice on Election Day. Who’s on the Ballot is guided by a group of leaders in the non-profit, business, and city government communities. Project Director and Columbia Professor Esther Fuchs worked closely with the NYIC throughout the election season, bringing in Pilobolus, a performance crew with a mis-sion to engage voters, and helping thou-sands of people find information to inform their vote.

Volunteer and paid staff hours during the campaign.

Breakdown of all contacts by contact method

Comparison of Trainings to Events Held During Campaign

“...immigrants face the language barrier, which complicates every aspect of voter participation and overall civic awareness...to have our voices be heard, we must work doubly hard to improve registration and turnout rates in our communities.” Steven Choi, Executive Director, MinKwon Center for Community Action

VOTER OUTREACH

New York based groups have a ‘target-rich’ geography for immigrant voter outreach. This environment allows NYIC partner groups to focus on parts of the immigrant community not ordinarily contacted by campaigns. Since 2006, the NYIC has encouraged partner groups to target newly registered and sporadic voters in their communities, also cross-targeted by language and geography.

Data has repeatedly shown that immigrant service groups are the most trusted messengers in their communities, frequently breaking through the electoral din to get the message out to their neighbors and educate voters about the issues. (Gerber & Green, GOTV) Knowing that, partner groups were able to maximize their volunteer time and focus their contacts on increasing the voter base in their communities and building immigrant voter power through education and direct ballot box impact. NYIC partners were able to ensure that door-to-door outreach, mailings, and phone banking efforts were language specific, and led primarily by bilingual volunteers.

Partner groups conducted outreach in 12 languages, including in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, Hindi, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Nepali, and Spanish among other languages and dialects familiar to campaign volunteers. Partners were able to reach thousands more at community events throughout New York, through press coverage, and by holding 62 events and 74 trainings around the counties of focus.

Because NYIC electoral efforts are built on over a decade of best practice knowledge, we were able to have immediate impact by using a 3-contact model with door, phone, and mail contacts supplementing each other for maximum impact.

The program continues to have incredible success in building the pipeline of civic engagement, which develops member groups into civic engagement powerhouses who are able to take the knowledge and experience learned during non-partisan electoral outreach and apply it to their policy and service goals in order to benefit and empower their communities.

The 10 Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign partners, conducted campaign activities in 11 communities,

speaking 12 different languages, in

Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Manhattan,

Staten Island, Rockland, Putnam,

Westchester, Nassau, and Dutchess

Counties

IMMIGRANTS VOTE! 2012 CAMPAIGN RESULTS

Registered 11,520 New Americans to Vote

Made 142,334 Contacts with 42,531 voters

Recruited 643 Volunteers and 367 Part-Time Staff

Logged 13,957 volunteer and staff hours

Held 74 trainings and 62 events.

Sponsored 3 Candidate and Community Forums

CAMPAIGN IMPACTIn 2012, while the NYIC’s civic engagement efforts took a necessary electoral focus, the level of success was clearly the result of long-term engagement efforts undertaken by the NYIC and partner groups over the last decade. By focusing on building the capacity of groups, providing education, and connecting them to technology, the NYIC is able to tap into a highly effective network of partners committed to civic engagement year-round, and amplify their efforts during this important election year.

The civic engagement pipeline that the NYIC has been developing is a multi step effort that begins with advocacy for immigrants regardless of status, moves on to naturalization support services, connects to voter registration efforts, and builds into voter engagement efforts, which connect back to post-election advocacy on issues affecting New York’s immigrant communities.

In recognizing long-term capacity-building goals beyond the numbers-oriented voter outreach cycle, the NYIC collaborates with a wide variety of groups who work in dozens of different communities in New York not yet individually represented or visible on the political spectrum, including Russian-speaking Central Asian communities in Queens, Nepali pockets in Jackson Heights, Arab-Americans in Bay Ridge, and numerous African communities on Staten Island. The partner groups represented in the Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign frequently had the only inroads into these smaller, underrepresented, emerging immigrant community groups, many of whom were able to know the issues and make an informed vote, often for the first time, due to the work of NYIC partners on the ground.

This unprecedented level of language coordination led to excellent experiences by volunteers and an incredible impact on those voters who never before had a chance to get politically involved in their native tongue. The response from community members was tremendous, and led to higher profiles and more recognition for partner groups in their communities.

The 2012 Immigrants Vote! Campaign was able to activate far-flung immigrant communities, build strength, inform voters on the issues, and create a sense of power in the New American voting bloc.

Arab American Association of New York

The Arab American Association of New York is the only advocacy organization serving, empowering and engaging the Arab American community of New York City in electoral politics. We focused our campaign in Southwest Brook-lyn, which includes Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Bensonhurst neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Southwest Brooklyn is the most highly concentrat-ed Arab American community in the en-tire state of New York. We reached over 6500 people through mailers, phone calls and canvassing. We also organ-ized a civic engagement street team made up of high school and college age students.

AAANY conducted four trainings that focused on GOTV strategies. Each training had 15 people in attendance. We had over 35 volunteers who recruit-ed other volunteers, aggregated lists of Middle Eastern voters, made the calls and joined teams to knock on doors. As we were making calls through the Voter Activation Network we noticed that many of those who were catego-rized as Arab American due to their surnames were in fact South Asian.This

revelation allowed us to act fast and recruit Ur-du- ‐speaking volunteers. Of the thirty five core volunteers, at least 7 of them were South Asian to ensure that these voters were able to ac-cess the critical voter information that we had available.

We facilitated 5 workshops of 50 people at two local Islamic institutions.These work-shops provided critical information about the importance of voting and the electronic ballot process. These workshops were for many the first time they participated in an informed dis-cussion on the electoral process. On average, approximately 40% of those who identified themselves as registered voters also said they would vote in 2012 for the first time.

The Arab American Association of New York organized a Candidate’s Forum at Public School 170. All candidates run-ning for State Senate, and two local As-sembly races attended the event. Ap-proximately 250 local residents attended this event.

The audience was very diverse, which displayed the true power of the local Arab American immigrant community.Hurricane Sandy hit New York City one week before elec-tions and that delayed much of the work and for some de-creased the amount of electoral work they were planning to implement. We were very fortunate at the Arab Ameri-can Association of New York to continue to do our work as planned. Obviously we knew that many of those af-fected would be preoccupied with Hurricane Sandy so we edited our phone scripts. Our scripts were an opportunity for us to ask people how they were doing, assess their needs and use the call to remind voters about upcoming elections. Voters were more likely to continue conversa-tion after responding to questions about their wellbeing post Sandy.

Two days after Sandy on Halloween, AAANY resumed with an event that was planned before the Hurricane, “Trick or Vote”. Volunteers came wearing costumes and made calls to voters. During this one evening, AAANY made over 550 calls with 20 volunteers. Volunteers also labeled the second wave of mailers that were mailed out the next day. During the last 4 weeks before elections, volunteers would choose one of 3 to four shifts to knock on doors. Teams of two were sent out for 3- hour shifts with walking lists obtained through VAN. Volunteers wore badges that identified them as volunteers with the AAANY and included our phone number. AAANY knocked on ap-proximately 2800 doors of Arab, Asian, and Latino voters.

* text taken from group final report. edited for length.

Our campaign got off to a strong start when we hired Jonathan Stribling-Uss,. Jonathan recently graduated from CUNY Law, is bilingual Spanish/English and had a lot of great organizing and field work experience. Plus he was from the Hudson Valley, raised in Monroe, Orange County. Jonathan worked with our Director of Community Organizing, Norma Pereira-Mora, to recruit a team of volunteers. The volunteer stipends were a big help in getting commitments from people to work the whole campaign.

The ages ran from 17 year old student Paula Mora, to retired postal service employee Steve Glusker. While Jonathan and Norma were putting together the team, our partners at Westchester Hispanic Coalition registered over 1,000 new voters, enabling them to vote in time for the November elections.

We ran our first GOTV Volunteer Training in early October. Jonathan put together this initial workshop, which we held at the Westchester offices of our partners, Neighbors Link of Mt. Kisco and the Elias Foundation. Most team members hadn’t participated in a GOTV effort before. One person who came to the initial training, did not take part in the rest of the campaign. At the wrap-up celebration, he confessed that it was just too painful to take part in another campaign, after working so hard on trying to get CIR passed in 2010, but coming up short.

At the initial training, we shared the campaign goals, talked about how to run a nonpartisan GOTV effort, and also did a lot of role plays. Throughout the month of October, we organized training at different locations throughout the area. Organizing in the Hudson Valley is always a challenge due to the geography: getting anywhere requires wheels and takes time. One evening we used the offices of Bedford Presbyterian Church to call voters. Another evening, Norma opened her home to the team. When we canvassed door-to-door in Brewster, my stepdad John Hagedorn let us occupy his house as our “home base.”

Hudson Valley Community Coalition and the Westchester Hispanic Coalition

Just when we were really building up the team momentum, Hurricane Sandy struck and completely changed our focus. Towns in Westchester, Rockland and southern Putnam counties were placed under a state of emergency because of countless fallen trees that tore down power lines and blocked roads. Several of our team were without heat and hot water for eight, nine and ten days, and with our schools shut down as well, parents had to miss work to take care of kids and other neighbors too. Several others joined up with other community groups’ relief efforts around the affected areas, helping out wherever and however they could.

Election day arrived, with power still out in most places in Westchester and Putnam Counties. Our team was determined to finish the campaign strong. Graciela Heymann, the director of Westchester Hispanic Coalition, offered her entire office space and all her staff to make calls on election day. With the recruiting efforts of Wiliam Méndez, Walfre Martinez and Lorna Leiva, who brought in four more volunteers, we launched an all-out effort to Get Out the Vote on November 6th. We ordered a dozen pizza pies for lunch, kept making phone calls, and then sent out teams of canvassers to hit the streets of White Plains.

We worked into the late evening, finally calling it a night after 9:30 p.m. We had made 3,700 phone calls! We wrapped up the campaign a few weeks later, with a potluck celebration and debrief. Almost all the feedback was positive, with members feeling great about being a part of a team, and about knowing that they made an impact on the people they connected with. Two members who didn’t take part in the campaign (but had attended the initial training) were sorry to not participate, but said that they looked forward to joining the efforts in 2013. (These two members also recruited several young people who did take part in the campaign.) It was a fun celebration and we all felt energized for the next campaign in 2013.

Hudson Valley Community Coalition/Westchester Hispanic Coalition Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign

Campaign Volunteer/Team Member Profile:

Lorna Leiva, Carmel, New York

Photo: Lorna connecting with new voters.

Lorna Leiva lives in Carmel, New York with her 11 year old daughter Zoe. She was born in Costa Rica and

works in Westchester County as a hairdresser. She was recruited to the campaign by her friend and our

Director of Community Organizing, Norma Pereira-Mora.

Lorna was one of the strongest campaigners on our team. She personally called a huge number of

voters, and she also trained other volunteers. This was her first “Get Out the Vote Campaign.”

“It was a wonderful experience,” Lorna said recently. “I met different people, and we were all on the

same page. We were so determined. The feeling was great. The energy was fantastic.”

Before joining the campaign, Lorna hadn’t planned on voting. When she was younger, she would take

her Grandma to vote. But she didn’t get involved past that. One afternoon in September she ran into a

friend in the A&P grocery.. He said to her, “You gotta vote. I know you’ve been disappointed in the past,

but your vote makes a difference.” Something in that conversation struck her. “It was done for me

then.” She decided to get involved. When Norma called a few days later, asking if she wanted to join the

campaign, she was ready and willing.

Lorna is grateful that Norma asked her to be a part of the campaign. She liked working as part of a

team. She enjoyed how team members gave each other advice, and encouraged each other.

Lorna is a very effective communicator. One of her calls was to a newly registered Italian-American

voter. He had no idea who to vote for, or motivation to go out and vote for anyone. He asked Lorna who

he should vote for. She told him that she couldn’t tell him who to vote for, but that he should just follow

his heart. At the end of the conversation, he said, “Well thank you. I think you convinced me Seňora.”

Submitted by:

Betsy Palmieri

Executive Director

Hudson Valley Community Coalition


This year, NICE and QCH jointly participated in the Immigrants Vote! Campaign. The collaboration allowed us to expand our individual reach within Northwest Queens and to activate immigrant voters of Latino, South Asian and Asian backgrounds. Together, we engaged over 70 community members through basic civic workshops, sent out 3,613 GOTV postcards, made 1000 phone calls and knocked on 993 doors reaching 1,388 registered voters in the neighborhoods of Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona.

Starting in September 2012, the Civic Engagement Coordinator implemented a series of civics workshops to inform new immigrants about the structures of government at the federal, state and local level. The workshops also covered which seats were up for election and which candidates were running for office in the upcoming elections.

They included which levels of government are responsible for different issues, such as immigration reform, police enforcement, schools, healthcare, public space, and services; seventy community members participated in two workshops held at Queens Community House and one at NICE. Many of the participants were not aware of the upcoming elections, and were eager to participate.

Staff reached out to the base of both organizations and other members of the community of Jackson Heights to inform them about the GOTV campaign. They made thirteen presentations about the campaign to over one hundred and thirty community members in ESOL classes, organizer and member meetings and at other community events. As a result of these efforts, they were able to recruit and train fifty-six volunteers to assist with work on the campaign. The Civic

New Immigrant Community Empowerment and Queens Community House

Engagement Coordinator, designed and implemented a curriculum to train volunteers how to knock doors and talk about the elections. Between five separate trainings held by the staff in three different languages, all of the fifty-six volunteers received training.

Overall, volunteers took pride in ensuring all voters had the opportunity to use their vote. Concerned that two different homebound

elders would be unable to get to the polls on their own, two QCH volunteers took the initiative to investigate transportation options for them on Election Day.

NICE members framed the work as ensuring that their interests were heard on Election Day. They educated each other on what was at stake and how as non-voters they were having a say in making this country better. For QCH members, many of whom are students in an ESOL program, it was also an opportunity to gain much-needed work experience and for many who are new to the country, a chance to gain hands-on understanding of not only US civics but also their local community.

Because NICE and QCH serve a diverse cross-section of the local community, one of the most important parts of the collaboration was bringing together volunteers across linguistic and cultural barriers with a common goal. On each of the three door knocking days, volunteers, speaking Spanish, Bengali, Urdu and Hindi, came together for an opening training review and then set out in teams based on their native language(s). In neighborhoods as ethnically diverse as Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona, this was an important opportunity to highlight our common struggle as immigrant New Yorkers and together, rally the community around issues of deep importance to all.

The Immigrants Vote! campaign proved rewarding for volunteers and for the organizations. Our efforts were validated on election night once returns were reported and showed immigrants turned out to vote in full force. We look forward to joining forces with the coalition and its members again in the coming year to ensure immigrant voices are strongly represented in the New York City elections.

“This was my first time knocking on doors in this country and I found it to be an amazing experience. In general, people received us well and I discovered that while it may take longer or be more work to knock on each door one by one, it is definitely a more pro-ductive and efficient way to reach people. It gave us the opportu-nity to explain on a personal level the importance of getting out to vote and representing the local immigrant community.”

Luz Marina, volunteer


In 2012, the MinKwon Center for Community Action announced its largest voter mobilization and registration drive ever to contact 2,000 households in-person and to phone-bank over 7,000 voters as part of its “Vote 2012: Your Voice, Your Vote” Campaign.

This joint campaign, with the New York Immigration Coalition, worked to bolster awareness among voters, particularly to recent immigrants and limited-English-proficient persons in Queens for the 2012 Primary and General Elections.

Using a new 2012 Voter Guide, a voter registration drive, and intensive get-out-the-vote efforts, MinKwon Center’s “Vote 2012: Your Voice, Your Vote” Campaign featured a comprehensive set of voter initiatives – voter registration, education, protection and mobilization – designed to fully engage voters in the 2012 elections.

The MinKwon Center took the lead in registering new immigrant voters with the NYIC at its new citizen registration initiatives at the Federal Courthouse. Every week, the MinKwon Center coordinates volunteer teams to the courthouse to register all the newly naturalized citizens. In addition to voter registration, volunteers also educate new citizens at the courthouse about the many different facets of voting, including where to vote and what it means to enroll in a political party.

In order to increase capacity to reach more voters ahead of the elections, MinKwon Center mobilized community members, youth, volunteers, and other program staff to strengthen electoral engagement work.

Minkwon Center for Community Action

As part of the Campaign, the MinKwon Center conducted phone banking and door knocking around Flushing ahead of the Election. At each household, staff and volunteers canvassed the community and distributed multilingual literature. The literature, translated into both Korean and Chinese, had photos of all the candidates who were running for elections in the area, as well as various voting help resources. Community residents responded positively to receiving this basic information; in fact, most people canvassed did not even know who was running to represent their districts. Our scripts posed questions that made voters think about who was on the ballot and what was at stake for them in these elections.

For 2012, the MinKwon Center also debuted a new “Voter Pledge” Postcard Campaign. For this pcampaign, the MinKwon Center asked voters to sign a form pledging to vote on November 6th. A week before the elections, MinKwon Center mailed back over 600 postcards to those voters, reminding them to vote. The pledge cards were translated into Korean, Chinese, and several South Asian languages. In addition, the postcards feature important resources, such as the Board of Elections hotline and various internet pages to look up polling location and voter status. In helping to conduct street outreach, phone-banking, and door-knocking efforts, youth volunteers were able to develop critical analysis skills in addition to their leadership skills.

With the City Council lines being redrawn now, the Minkwon Center is looking forward to working with the NYIC again to make an even greater impact in the critical 2013 New York City elections.

“When I first started door knocking, I was really nervous. However, the more I did it, the more I began to enjoy it. One of my most memorable door knocking experiences was on Hal-loween.

Many residents in the area were at home because of Hurri-cane Sandy that had just passed through a few days ago. We were only 6 days away from Election Day and it was crucial that we disseminated as much information as possible. It was a really great experience because people were so kind when they opened the door to us, expecting us to be trick-or-treaters. One resident was particularly receptive to talk to us. She glad-ly answered all the questions on our survey and was excited about being able to vote.

From this experience, I learned that door knocking is one of the most intimate and effective ways to reach a voter. It was great to know that I definitely had a positive impact on the democratic process.”

Kanupriya Pandey, Volunteer


Since the fall of 2006, Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights has managed GOTV campaigns in partnership with the NYIC with the goal of increasing the community’s awareness of the importance of civic participation as community members, lawful permanent residents, and U.S. citizens; as well as to increase the number of Latino registered voters in both Northern Manhattan and the Bronx. With 2012 being a presidential election year, we were focused on ensuring that the Latino and immigrant presence and power was felt. During 2008, President Obama made a campaign promise that comprehensive immigration would occur during the first year. After dealing with a difficult political landscape over the past four years, we felt it was important for all candidates involved to be fully aware of the power of the Latino vote. The only way we could do that was by mounting a very strong effort to encourage Latinos and immigrants of the area we serve.

NMCIR developed great relationships with active members of the Northern

Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights

Manhattan and Bronx community. Through our organizing meetings, citizenship classes, and previous GOTV campaigns, we have participants who have demonstrated outstanding leadership skills and those with the desire to develop them.

We hired twenty-four bi-lingual individuals from the community, of ages ranging from sixteen – sixty, to focus on spreading the message on the importance of voting for their leaders and holding our presidential candidates accountable to the Latino and immigrant community.Many of our canvassers learned what it truly means to be an active participant in their communities. They learned about it through the process of performing this type of outreach as well as from the people they were able to and unable to engage.

One of our veteran callers, Rosa M. Rodriguez, who was also a first time canvasser, felt more inspiration as the days went by because of the community’s response to the campaign. She quickly learned that door-knocking was her favorite form of outreach because of the connections she was able to make with the community, both registered voters and unregistered voters, their feedback and desire to become involved in things that affect their community.

In general, the canvassers (door-knocking) experience was a more positive one even if the registered voter they were trying to contact was not at the address they obtained from the database.

By Election Day, November 6, 2012, NMCIR and the exceptional team of canvassers/callers made 16,974 contacts to a list of 4,905 registered voters.

NMCIR planned to send out a second mailing during the week before Election Day but was not able to. The effects of Hurricane Sandy were not physically devastating in the Northern Manhattan area, but the effect it had on the rest of the city was destructive enough to derail us for a few days.

Overall, the Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign was successful and exciting. We always hope to have more than a few weeks to plan and strategize for the upcoming GOTV cycle but the support we received from the NYIC and partner organizations made it easier to manage. The meetings leading to the campaign and mid way through truly helped in addressing any questions or concerns we may have had throughout the planning and/or execution process. The sharing of documents and best practices also made things easier for organizations who were either working with this for the first time or had limited capacity.


During the Campaign period, the Russian–American Voters Educational League further strengthened the Russian–speaking community of Queens and provided it with meaningful tools that facilitated its engagement in the social and civic life of New York.

RAVEL significantly enlarged its voter mobilization activities in the Forrest Hills part of Queens. In addition to traditionally targeted Russian immigrants from European parts of the former USSR, special attention was paid to “Bukharian” Russian-speaking immigrants, and others from Central Asia, from Georgia (USSR) and Caucasus, most of whom settled in Queens in the 1990’s.

Due to specifics of the areas these groups come from, they brought with them a deep-rooted skepticism towards political and civic participation and fell away from mainstream of community life. That is why they have indeed been overlooked as a voting power. These immigrants are compactly accommodated in Queens, and have their main community institutions in Forrest Hills. By maintaining their specific religious and cultural habits they have become an isolated part of the Russian community.

RAVEL, as the only Russian group in this area, specifically fully focused on voter education and involvement , paid close attention to this phenomena and in the effort to fix the situation started performing voter educational and outreach activities in collaboration with local Russian community based organizations.

Russian American Voter Education League

This campaign gave us the opportunity:

to unite peopleto prove that each vote countsto show community strength

to see the results and understand the importance of

community involvement to build bridges between

different communitiesto identify and engage future

leadersBy expanding RAVEL’s effective combination of voter education, organizing and nonpartisan get–out–the-vote efforts during the election, RAVEL was able to reach over 3,000 Russian–American voters of Forest Hills three times each. Particular attention was devoted to first time voters and people who had not voted in previous year’s general elections and usually vote at very low rates.

During the campaign period RAVEL worked in cooperation with other Queens community based organizations to conduct two Candidate forums. As always, RAVEL partnered with Russian radio and Russian newspapers who played an extremely positive role in providing non-partisan information to thousands of Russian-speaking voters.


La Fuente set out to increase the culture of civic participation for its membership and allies through the Votos y Voces pro-ject in the fall of 2012.

We were able to hire and train a group of people who never canvassed before, recruiting from our own membership and that of allied organizations. On average we had 4-5 canvass-ers a day as well as a canvass coordinator who also was de-veloped in the field. The canvass training included basic in-formation and best practices for meeting their goals but also important discussions about the relationship between power, politics at every level of government and the immigrant com-munity. Canvassers learned to value the role that immigrants can play in impacting decisions at every ring of government. As a result, the canvass was able to achieve our of goal two rounds of door knocking to 2,000 voters in our targeted neighborhoods in South Bronx, Washington Heights and Co-rona, Queens. In total we made more than 4,132 knocks!

The Votos y Voces project set out to do more than just knock doors. The goal was to build capacity within the organization and better know the neighborhoods. The canvassers all used voter surveys to find out whether or not they were parents, workers, and what issues are most important to them. The canvassers exceeded expecta-tions by getting over 2,000 surveys filled out.

Leadership Development Among La Fuente Volunteers:La Fuente was able to train and develop over 20 volunteers to take on leadership roles in the Votos y Voces campaign. One

La Fuente

“We are working tirelessly to ensure that our immigrant commu-nities exercise their right to vote on Election Day. The immigrant vote and the hundreds of individuals working to ensure that eve-ryone turns out and their voices are heard are at the heart of this effort, and La Fuente is excited to be a partner.”

Lucia Gomez-Jimenez, Executive Director | La Fuente

highlight was the Washington Heights committee which, without any paid organ-izer, was able to staff a volunteer office the last two weeks before the election and fill it with volunteers to make phone calls and knock on doors. We held trainings in Queens, the Bronx and at the Manhattan office where member leaders learned how to run phone banks. One of our active members, Claudia Carias, took on more and more responsibility to the point where she was planning a youth phone bank in order to engage youth from the immigrant community to become more engaged in voting at an early age.

Linking Issues to the Elections through ActionLa Fuente was able to further its coalition work during this period connecting im-portant campaigns to civic participation. As a result volunteers attended rallies and press conferences highlighting the need to register and vote, such as the rally against Bain Capital during National Get Out the Vote Day. On that day, volunteers registered over 100 new voters in the South Bronx, Nassau County, Long Island and Corona Queens. As people registered they were encouraged to participate in one of La Fuente’s major campaigns of educational justice, economic justice or immigrant services and rights.

La Fuente also held Get Out The Vote book fairs to highlight the challenges our lo-cal public schools are facing and encouraging partents to get out the vote. Work-ing with specific public schools adopted by La Fuente’s committees, La Fuente organized book fairs where every parent who registered was given free books to read to their kids.


We used combined lists of Project Hospitality friends and supporters to identify targeted potential voters and offer a get out the vote phone message delivered to 800 new voters. A number of these calls took place post Sandy and we began all the calls with a Sandy check in.

El Centro del Inmigrante de Staten Island

“El Centro is having hundreds of conversations with potential vot-ers on the North Shore of Staten Island. The needs of our com-munity are at stake and we will help guide voters to the booth on Election Day!”

Gonzalo Mercado, Executive Director El Centro del Inmigrante de Staten Island

We had two meetings with the NAACP to de-velop a coordinated message from the immi-grant and African American community. Our plan was to distribute 4000 cards, working with NAACP volunteers in all the housing projects and surrounding immediate neighborhoods - integrating the lives of African Americans and their immigrant neighbors.

We developed an agreed upon message which we then produced in a postcard format on the back of the postcard were the polling site addresses for each of the public housing sites.The messaging emphasized the importance in our voice in choosing elected lead-ers who will address the concerns of our community.

We agreed to distribute these cards in all of the public housing projects on Staten Island. We distributed cards at the Jersey St NYCHA projects and at the Al-Noor Rhine Ave Mosque - repre-senting a majority Pakistani community.

We produced 4000 postcards pre-Sandy. We distributed many of the cards at local commercial districts near the housing projects on Election Day. Because of the devastation of Sandy and the fact that none of the housing projects on Staten Island had elec-tricity from October 29th through Election Day, it was not wise nor safe for us to visit the targeted housing projects, without access to electricity or elevators.

We had planned to leaflet at the ferry but the ferries were not running after Hurricane Sandy. Several of the poling sites were changed due to Sandy. For many people it was hard to know where to vote so postcard distribution on election was also a help for direction to the polls.

All in all, with our targeted phone calls and card distribution and reaching out to and igniting interest in our efforts with the local NAACP, we believe our victory was demonstrated in a high number of votes in communities of color and immigrant communities on Staten Island.


Photograph by Bebeto Matthews

espite warnings and preparations, nobody expected Hurricane Sandy to have the kind of devastating impact that it ended

up having. Low lying areas of New York, which were often immigrant neighborhoods, got hit especially hard, with homes destroyed, power gone for weeks, and no access to jobs or official relief services. As the storm abated, the extent of the damage became apparent. Local, State, and National authorities responded immediately, but with an area as densely populated as New York and New Jersey it was inevitable that some areas would become crisis zones. Once again, like in all times of crisis, New Yorkers came together to help each other through, with neighbors organizing support kitchens and cleanup efforts. Immigrants Vote! Campaign partners were immediately involved in clean-up and support efforts in Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, Hudson Valley, and Long Island. Meanwhile NYIC staff came together on phones to help connect disaster relief efforts with translation services, disseminate information, and advocate for immediate action to help immigrant communities and all New Yorkers. These efforts happened in spite of the reality that many partner offices were shut down for many weeks, with the New York Immigration Coalition’s office and servers inaccessible for over a week. With Election Day only a weekend away when the storm hit, problems

D

Daniel Goodine photo

24 hours. By Monday morning, the letter went to Albany with over a hundred signatures gathered during a draining weekend. Governor Cuomo signed the Executive Order to allow affidavit ballot access to all displaced New Yorkers across New York State on Monday afternoon November 5th, saying that he could not let democracy be stopped by the storm.

The resilience of all New Yorkers was inspiring to see, with many groups going full out to coordinate relief efforts and alleviate immediate issues in South Brooklyn, Staten Island, Westchester and Putnam Counties, Long Island, and Northern Queens; while others continued their outreach efforts, getting up to date information on poll site changes and ride shares to voters throughout the city.

All partner groups were back into final outreach mode on Election Day, providing rides, poll monitoring, addressing issues, and going door to door in affected communities to make sure people came out to vote.

of access to the franchise arose almost immediately. Many poll sites looked like they would remain flooded for weeks, and access to information was made difficult by the disruption of cell networks and communication chains. The NYIC reached out to Common Cause New York and the New York Election Protection Table to formulate a joint strategy of advocating for affidavit ballot access for all displaced New Yorkers regardless of location.

Using the fast response online network developed by the Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign, all partner groups were able to add their voices to a sign-on letter to the Governor and an online petition within

SANDY RESPONSE

A handout photo released on 04 November 2012 showing New York Governor An-drew Cuomo surveying the destruction from Hurricane Sandy in Lindenhurst, New York, USA, 03 November 2012. The storm was one of the largest in history to hit the US East Coast and has caused power outages for millions of people in the Eastern US and crippled transportation in New York City. EPA/JUDY SANDERS /

The Asian-American community is now the fastest growing immigrant community in the US, and it has traditionally been one of the most difficult general groups to engage in civic participation efforts. This year partner groups made some strong inroads into activating this sleeping giant. The results have been stunning, with large Asian-American turnouts voting 73% for President Obama.

Immigrants Vote! Campaign partners have been at the forefront of engaging Asian-American voters since the beginning of NYIC’s civic engagement programs

o Minkwon Center for Community Action worked hard to activate the Korean, Chinese, and South Asian communities in Queens. Minkwon capitalized on the possibility of electing the first Asian American woman in New York to Congress by hosting a well attended candidate forum and connecting their voter education efforts to possible electoral impact. They were also involved in tracking redistricting efforts and advocating for fair districts. All this on top of leading the NYIC’s voter registration efforts in 2012.

o NICE and QCH worked closely with the growing South Asian Community in Jackson Heights, Queens. They recruited volunteers who spoke Bengali, Hindi, Pashto, and Urdu to reach those new Americans who have not been engaged before, and they had an incredible impact, with many voters saying that this was the first time they could engage with the issues in their own languages, giving them a real stake in the election.

o The Arab American Association of New York worked with the increasingly diverse Middle Eastern and South Asian communities in Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst in Brooklyn. Recruiting native speakers of Urdu, Hindi, and Bengali along with their core of Arabic speakers gave them an outsized impact in the neighborhood. The candidate forum AAANY hosted drew over 250 community members and shook up the established power structure by showing that the immigrant community was changing and becoming more active.

The Latino community, by no means uniform in New York, has been the most numerous immigrant group over the last decade. Latino enclaves have sprung up in every borough of NYC and in small towns all over New York State. Latino outreach has been a major focus of the immigrant rights movement and we saw some impressive results, with 71% of Latino voters sending President Obama back to the oval office.

Partner groups engaged with Latino communities in and out of NYC:

o NICE & QCH engaged a primarily undocumented community in Queens, getting their students to go door to door and encourage voters to cast their vote to help and empower those who cannot.o El Centro del Inmigrante de Staten Island engaged day-laborers in outreach and Sandy cleanup work to help all Staten Island residents, regardless of status.

Panel at America’s Society sponsored by the Rockefeller Broth-ers Fund. Photo courtesy of the NYIC.

Asian Community Engagement

SPOTLIGHT

o Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights worked with NALEO to hold educational forums, and to reach Latino voters in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan.o La Fuente activated thousands of Latino voters across New York and in Nassau County in Long Island. They were co-leads on the NYIC voter registration efforts and led one of the largest outreach efforts of the campaign, talking to over 7,500 Latino voters.o The Hudson Valley Community Coalition focused all their outreach efforts on Spanish speaking groups who are dispersed all through Westchester, Dutchess, and Putnam Counties in a continued effort to retain focus on areas outside of NYC where most immigrant population growth has taken place over the last decade.o The NYIC co-hosted two panels with the America’s Society under the auspices of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Each one focused on the impact of the Latino vote on immigration reform o The programs looked at advances (or setbacks) in immigration policy in the next four years including the likelihood of immigration reform, with a focus on what form it could take, how immigration legislation could work its way through Congress and how to get stakeholders on board. The audience consisted of a varied group of educators, students, NGOs, foundations, and public and private sector representatives. o Panelists included: Erica Gonzalez, Executive Editor of El Diario La Prensa; Chung-Wha Hong, Executive Director, New York Immigration Coalition; Jorge Pérez, Senior Vice President, Manpower North America; and Muzaffar Chishti, Director, Migration Policy Institute Office at NYU School of Law

Hispanic Community Engagement

Minkwon Center’s Candidate Forum

lesson one

TRUSTED COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS ARE THE BEST VEHICLES FOR CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

New York remains a vibrant tapestry of blending and overlapping immigrant communities, all in various states of becoming civically engaged. Immigrant-led and immigrant-serving groups remain the first line of engagement with these changing neighborhoods, first as service providers, and then as educators and links to the larger civic life of New York and the nation. By working with trusted community groups, who primarily rely on volunteers or stipended long-time supporters from the community, the NYIC is able to put resources and expertise exactly at the point of impact and have the strongest possible long-term effects. The long-term commitment from the NYIC network continues to show in the growth and vibrancy of organizations across the civic engagement pipeline.

lesson two

UNIFIED EFFORT IS EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE

The clearest benefit of the Immigrants Vote! Campaign is that a unified effort among immigrant community serving organizations helps all partners move up the civic engagement pipeline. A coordinated effort removes duplication in work and outreach targets, quickly scales best practices, allows for vigorous knowledge exchange, and generates greater effort among members to engage in civic education work, community building, and leadership development. In partner evaluations, the most consistent theme that emerged was that uniting under the banner of the Immigrants Vote! Campaign and the NYIC created a magnified voice for each partner, while at the same time getting out an important unified message. This campaign theme is maintained through branding and message guidance, but also through a flexible structure which encourages groups to experiment with materials applicable to their own communities while using larger campaign branding to maintain continuity in communications stretching across the New York metro area. During this campaign cycle the Campaign was able to work on the overarching Immigrants Vote! Campaign brand that provided groups with a common identity and unified partner organizations into a cohesive campaign. Coordinated message development led to deeper integration among partners and created a civic engagement program that increased visibility and strengthened the image of immigrant communities as a voting bloc. The unified effort went beyond just branding, to focus on capacity building, strategy, messaging, voter education, and public awareness activities. The framework and resources developed during the electoral cycle will be adapted for use in the 2013 Campaign.

lesson three

INNOVATION AND COORDINATION THROUGH ONLINE ENGAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY

By using online reporting, communication, and scheduling tools, Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign partners and staff were able to schedule meetings, review materials, draft public statements, accumulate information, make quick decisions, and collect weekly reports in a smooth and efficient manner. The structure allowed NYIC staff and consultants to stay connected to the field, monitor possible issues, direct resources effectively, and show full, real-time impact of partner efforts to National coordinators and allies on a weekly basis.

The online coordination structure also allowed NYIC staff to track and provide needed support in a timely manner from a variety of locations. The technology allowed each group to maximize its own efficiency by taking time consuming tasks and condensing them down to a few weekly actions. The online tools are continuing to improve and the NYIC is planning to implement a few new tools in 2013, including building a Nationbuilder framework for integrating all online, social media, and mobile outreach into a single campaign interface.

LESSONS

CONCLUSIONSPast surveys show that new citizen voters made up nearly half of all first-time voters in New York—an indication of their continuing growing electoral power and central role in revitalizing our democracy. Immigrant voters bring new energy into the country’s electoral life, and there’s no denying the growing power of the New American voting bloc.

The NYIC has been at the forefront of engaging immigrant communities in the civic life of New York City and New York State for 25 years, leading the way in policy advocacy, power/capacity building, and critical community response. The Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign brought years of investment in developing community leaders into sharp relief, as the NYIC network came together to create a powerful, coordinated, and effective outreach effort in a short time with limited resources, and braved a natural disaster to educate, connect, and pave the way for thousands of New American voters to cast their ballots.

Partners are now gearing up to maximize their impact in the 2013 municipal elections, where New York immigrant communities tend to play an outsized role. With 19 city council seats up for election, and citywide offices for Mayor, Comptroller, and Public Advocate up for grabs,

“Connecting with a real person who cares about their right to vote can make all the difference, especially to someone who has never voted before.”

Betsy Palmieri, Executive DirectorHudson Valley Community Coalition

NYIC members are ready to parlay their experience and power building into activating more of their communities, and running campaigns that create strength, inform voters, and hold elected officials accountable to promises made in the electoral cycle. The NYIC plans to lead the efforts again in 2013, and will be focusing on NYC Metro areas, Long Island, Westchester County, Putnam County, and Dutchess County. The goal in 2013 is to increase the immigrant voter share and to continue building the power and capacity of the immigrant community serving organizations in our network.

The Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign has been a tremendous success as it has helped create momentum to keep immigrant issues at the forefront of policy debates, served as a platform for continued advocacy, and will be a springboard for 2013 election efforts. None of this would have been possible without the long-term vision of our members, funders, and supporters, whom we thank for their commitment to long-term engagement of the shifting, vibrant, and diverse immigrant communities of New York.

The 2012 Campaign would not have been possible without the

support of our committed funders and national partners:

Rockefeller Brothers FundFour Freedoms FundCenter for Community ChangeSolidago FoundationAnd all other NYIC supporters without whom we would not exist.

Biggest Thanks to Dedicated Electoral Staff at Partner Groups:

Eva Lewis, Valeria Treves, and Anna Dioguardi - NICE/QCH, Shanna Goldman and Lucia Gomez-Jimenez - La Fuente, Sabrina Fong and James Hong - Minkwon, Almirca Santiago - NMCIR, Linda Sarsour and Faisa Ali - AAANY, Vladimir Epshteyn - RAVEL, Gonzalo Mercado and Terry Troia - El Centro and Project Hospitality, Betsy Palmieri and Jonathan Stribling-Uss - HVCC, Graciela Heymann - WHC; and an extra thank you to the 650 volunteers and staffers who worked through rain and storm to engage their communities.

This Campaign benefited from technical support provided by: Ben Hanna, Center for Community Change Sonya Reynolds, State Voices / ISSIMaurice Mitchell, New York State C3 Roundtable

Special Thanks to PILOBOLUS and Esther Fuchs at whosontheballot.org

NYIC Campaign Staff:

Alan Kaplan, Campaign Director Manny Castro, Electoral ConsultantChung-Wha Hong, Executive DirectorKaren Kaminsky, Deputy Executive Director

Immigrants Vote! 2012 Campaign leaders at 10,000 regis-tered voter mark press conference. Photo courtesy of NYIC.

www.thenyic.org212.627.2227nyic

The Immigrants Vote Campaign is a non-partisan (501 c3) effort to inform voters about the electoral process, coordinated by the New York Immigration Coalition (www.thenyic.org).

The collaborative consists of Minkwon Center for Community Action, New Immigrant Community Empowerment, Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, El Centro del Inmigrante, Arab American Association of New York, Hudson Valley Community Coalition, La

Fuente, Russian American Voter Education League, Queens Community House, and the Westchester Hispanic Coalition.

nyic report on immigrants vote 2012 civic engagement campaign

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