AZ - Voter campaign targeting Latinos -- Prop. 200 used to raise interest

Called the New American Freedom Summer campaign, the effort targets Latino voters in Arizona and Florida, two states that organizers say are on the front lines of the country's immigration reform debate. Hundreds of migrants have died crossing the Arizona desert, and Haitians are routinely deported from southern Florida. In 2000, Latinos represented 12.6 percent of the U.S. population, but only 5.3 percent of the votes cast, according to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, D.C. That's largely because immigrants make up a significant part of the Latino population and many are not eligible to vote because they aren't citizens. But even Latino citizens are less likely to register and less likely to vote than Whites, according to the Urban Institute. The activists have seized upon the Protect Arizona Now ballot initiative. Shearer says the proposition is unnecessary because there is no evidence of voter fraud among undocumented immigrants, and it could keep eligible Latinos from voting. [more]

• Protect Arizona Now, slated to appear on the Nov. 2 ballot as Proposition 200, seeks to clamp down on illegal immigration in Arizona by blocking undocumented immigrants from voting and from receiving state and locally funded public benefits.
  
• The proposition would force Arizonans to prove their citizenship when registering to vote and show identification when casting a ballot at the polls.
  
• It would also make it a crime for state and local government employees to fail to report suspected undocumented immigrants seeking public benefits.