Voting can be a complicated process for many. The pandemic is exposing that, with many rules only just now being widely discovered for the first time. For instance, North Carolina鈥檚 witness requirement on absentee ballots. For new American citizens, the process can be especially hard to navigate.
It鈥檚 a crisp fall morning at a public park in Fletcher. A few steps away from the baseball field and the playground, volunteers are huddled behind a folding table that鈥檚 covered with voting information and sample ballots.
Gabby Mendez smiles from behind her facemask and points to the stacks of papers.
鈥淲e have everything in Spanish, we have information, the application, and we can also do it online,鈥� she said.
Mendez is with the Hendersonville-based non-profit El Centro. It鈥檚 organized ten registration events like these so far. Turnout on this particular day is slim.
鈥淲e did everything that we could, like, we posted on social media,鈥� Mendez said. 鈥淢ost of the Hispanics are working right now, it鈥檚 a Saturday. Probably they鈥檙e working, it鈥檚 cold. We鈥檙e trying to do what we can.鈥�
El Centro鈥檚 not slowing down. In addition to the outreach, Mendez says they mailed more than 3,000 informational postcards in Spanish to eligible voters in Buncombe and Henderson Counties.
It鈥檚 just one example of many efforts across the state to find and mobilize every immigrant who鈥檚 eligible to cast a ballot.
Durham-based non-profit North Carolina Asian Americans Together has been translating information for voters into six languages -- Hindi, Urdu, Vietnamese, Korean, Hmong, and Chinese.
Senior Director Ricky Leung says immigrant communities representing different nationalities are united by shared challenges, like language, particularly during the pandemic.
鈥淥ne of our closest partners is a local Latino organization, and we do learn a lot from each other, and there are definitely a lot of issues and barriers that our communities face,鈥� Leung said.
NCAAT says voter contact remains a large, unmet need among Asian Americans. In the 2016 presidential election, 71 percentage of Asian American voters nationally reported that they were not contacted by either major political party about the election.
That鈥檚 particularly significant in a swing state like North Carolina. With more than 200,000 Asian American Pacific Islander voters in the state, NCAAT says they could be a major force in the current election.
Leung co-founded the organization in 2014 primarily to encourage voter turnout among Asian American Pacific Islander communities across the state.
鈥淕rowing up in North Carolina and realizing that no one is reaching out to our communities,鈥� Leung said. 鈥淪o that鈥檚 what we鈥檝e been doing since our founding, doing phone banks, door-to-door canvassing, and showing up to festivals鈥�
This year, they鈥檝e also set up a multilingual voter assistance hotline and produced informational videos to help voters fill out absentee ballots.
鈥淢y sense is that there鈥檚 never been more attention on voting rights, especially for immigrant citizens,鈥� Gunther Peck, Duke University professor of history and public policy, said.
He heads the Hart Leadership Program at the Sanford School of Public Policy, where are going to great lengths to connect with voters in their primary language and make sure their vote is counted.
鈥淒riving from Durham into Wake County to find and to go to the door of the citizen who doesn鈥檛 have a phone number to make sure that they know they have an opportunity to have their ballot counted still,鈥� Peck said. 鈥淭his is teamwork in involving students and citizens, all of them bilingual, so they can speak and meet voters where they are.鈥�
While that may seem like a drastic measure, the program's associate director Lalita Kaligotla offers a perspective from her native country:
鈥淚n India where I鈥檓 from, for example, no polling location by law -- and it鈥檚 written in the constitution -- can be any further than two kilometers away from a person鈥檚 residence,鈥� Kaligotla said. 鈥淵ou have to have access to the polls.鈥�
But you don鈥檛 have to look outside the US for models or solutions to improve voter access for non-native voters. Other states, like California, already offer ballots in numerous languages.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not like the law here is lacking, it鈥檚 the fact that the implementation is lagging,鈥� Kaligotla said.
And the barriers go beyond language and transportation. Kaligotla says they can be emotional, too. Among the Latinx-Hispanic population, for instance, fears about putting undocumented relatives at risk has kept some eligible citizens from going to the polls. Some of those fears stem from Immigration and Customs Enforcement鈥檚in 2018 to seize voter records in North Carolina.
鈥淵ou know, many immigrants feeling disconnected from the fabric of our democracy, feeling like perhaps their vote doesn鈥檛 matter,鈥� Kaligotla said. 鈥淔or a variety of reasons, including issues of representation. When people don鈥檛 see people like themselves in elected office, then the incentives to get out and participate in the political process feels lower.鈥�
That鈥檚 why she adds, the other part of the representation equation means getting more candidates who reflect the country鈥檚 demographics into office.
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