ELECTIONS / VOTER REGISTRATION : Political Activists Launch Extensive Campaign to Get Latinos to the Polls

Latino political leaders have launched what they describe as the most extensive get-out-the-vote drive among Latinos in Ventura County history.

Word is being spread throughout the county’s Latino community--more than 26% of the population in the 1990 census--about the possibility of electing Latino candidates to school boards, the Oxnard City Council and even the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Since I’ve been here, this is the biggest push to register Latino voters,” said Lonnie I. Miramontes, field representative for the Oxnard-based El Concilio Del Condado de Ventura, a nonprofit activist group.

“We’re looking at a goal of getting 60% of registered Latinos to vote this year, compared to half that number in 1988,” he said. “We’re really going and doing a countywide effort. We’re targeting precincts and really going after the new citizens and also using the absentee ballot.”

El Concilio and the Ventura chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, a nationwide arm of the AFL-CIO, have hooked up with a group with widespread clout, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, to turn out the vote.

“Latinos will come out if they believe there is a real race between two candidates and one candidate takes them seriously,” said Richard Martinez, executive director of Southwest, which is plotting strategy for the Ventura County get-out-the-vote coalition.

Southwest, which is based in San Antonio, has registered more than 1.5 million minorities--mostly Latinos--in California, Texas, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico during its 17-year history.

“There is the realization that this could be a watershed year, the awakening of the sleeping giant,” said Oscar Gonzales, an Oxnard lawyer and political activist. “The sleeping giant is the vast potential Chicano bloc in Ventura County.”

The biggest Ventura County prize is a House seat.

Anita Perez Ferguson of Oxnard, a Latina, is challenging Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) in the 23rd Congressional District. The seat represents Carpinteria and all of Ventura County except eastern Thousand Oaks.

If elected, Perez Ferguson, an education consultant, would become only the second Latina lawmaker in the 435-member House. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, was elected in 1989.

Targeting a minority bloc is highly sensitive political business at best.

For its part, the coalition emphasizes that it is mounting a nonpartisan effort and, because two of its three members are nonprofit, it cannot make a pitch for Perez Ferguson or any other candidate.

“We’re not registering because of a congressional election,” said Martinez, whose group provides the training and organizational skills for the registration effort. “We’re building a strong registration base.”

Martinez says the year-of-the-woman gender issue that has captured the nation’s attention is not a big deal in the Latino community.

“We’re a family vote. We vote as a community. In our polling, Latinos are more interested in jobs first, the condition of education and crime and violence.”

But Martinez and other organizers are the first to acknowledge that they expect eight of every 10 Latinos they persuade to vote to mark their ballots for Perez Ferguson and other Latino candidates.

Without big numbers from the Latino constituency, Martinez declared that her election “is not going to happen.”

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Both Perez Ferguson, 43, and Gallegly, 48, assiduously avoid suggesting that they are trying to woo any particular ethnic bloc.

To be sure, Perez Ferguson says she supports increased Latino registration as “a personal commitment to move more voters forward, a message of change that we are promoting. But I want the full spectrum of voters.”

Stimulating a big Latino turnout, she says, “is not a do-or-die proposition” for her prospects of capturing a House seat.

But when pressed if she thinks a sizable Latino turnout would bury Gallegly, she quickly responds, “Yeah, I do.”

Political consultant Jim Dantona of Simi Valley agrees that if Latinos do turn out in substantial numbers in November, Perez Ferguson “has an awfully good shot at unseating the incumbent.”

But even if Latinos continue their non-voting habits, there could be a significant crossover vote by Republicans, especially Republican women, to keep the race tight, said Dantona, a member of the Ventura County Democratic Central Committee.

Gallegly, a three-term incumbent, says his campaign strategy doesn’t turn on targeting minorities.

“My strategy to win the Latino community is the same as any other community,” he says. “I think of Latinos like Anglos; we’re all Americans and we all want to feed our families.”

Chuck Jelloian, Gallegly’s campaign manager, said of the county’s Latino residents:

“These people, who have roots in the area, are very interested in all of those issues that Elton has gotten an ‘A’ on every time.”

Latino voting strategy calls for concentrating on 10 of the county’s 636 voting precincts that have high concentrations of Latinos but a history of low registration and low turnout.

Volunteers walking these precincts know from past experience that they have a formidable task in changing Latino voting habits.

“There is a lack of confidence in the process and how it works in the Spanish-speaking community,” said Carlos Aguilera, who is canvassing Oxnard’s heavily Latino La Colonia neighborhood. “They feel they are on the bottom of the totem pole and their vote doesn’t count.”

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Data from the 1990 U.S. census, the county registrar and the Southwest group underscore his point in the three Ventura County cities with the highest proportion of Latino residents--Oxnard, Santa Paula and Fillmore.

Oxnard, the county’s most populous city, is 54% Latino. Yet only 29% of the Latinos eligible to vote are registered, compared to 51% for Oxnard as a whole.

In Santa Paula, which has a 59% Latino population, only 33% of eligible Latinos have registered to vote, compared to 57% for the total population.

In Fillmore, where Latinos also constitute 59% of the population, Latinos have a registration level of only 32%, contrasted with 57% for all residents eligible to register.

Aguilera is the turn-out-the-vote coordinator for two precincts in La Colonia, Nos. 546 and 547, which are classic case studies in Latino voter apathy.

Precinct No. 546 has a total population of 8,699 people, of which 8,291, or 95%, are Latino, according to the 1990 census. Ventura County registration figures show that the precinct has 1,657 registered voters, or 19% of those eligible to vote.

Precinct No. 547 has 6,323 residents, of which 6,017, or 95%, are Latino. County registrar figures show 611 registered voters in this precinct, or a 10% registration level.

“We’re targeting 75% registration for those two districts,” Aguilera said.

Ventura County assistant registrar Bruce Bradley thinks that’s an unrealistic goal.

“It would be a very difficult task,” he said. “It would be more realistic to set your goals a little bit lower. But it is an area that is wide open for registration.”

That observation could be applied countywide as well.

There are 336,094 registered voters in Ventura County, according to county figures as of Aug. 28. Of that total, 36,607 Latinos are registered to vote, making them 11% of all registered voters, according to the Southwest group.

More important, however, is the fact that of 112,944 Latino residents in Ventura County who are 18 or older and eligible to vote, only 32% have registered compared to a countywide level of more than 70%.

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Just turning out the Latino vote in Oxnard could have a major election impact, Bradley said.

“Oxnard, in every election, has the lowest turnout of any major city” in the county, he said. “So Hispanic leaders who talk about a turnout are on the right track.”

Last Wednesday night was a typical one in the coalition’s efforts to ratchet up the Latino registration level in the county and to urge those Latinos already registered to vote in the general election. Six volunteers walked precinct No. 305 in Santa Paula.

Of the precinct’s 4,014 people of voting age, 3,714, or 92%, are Latinos. But only 916 individuals--or 23% of the district’s eligible voters--have registered, according to an analysis by Bradley.

El Concilio’s Miramontes said the volunteers walked along High, Citrus, Sycamore and 13th streets, knocking on the doors of about 50 homes.

“This evening we gave out 30 absentee ballots and registered 15 new people,” he said.

Again, he cautioned, no one touted a candidate. And, indeed, he declared, some of the Latinos to whom the volunteers spoke might vote for Republican Gallegly.

“My father is more conservative than Mr. Gallegly,” Miramontes said. “Latinos come in all flavors.”

The Latino Bloc in Ventura County

TOTAL LATINO VOTER LATINO POPULATION POPULATION % LATINOS REGISTRATION VOTERS Camarillo 52,303 6,326 12% 30,029 1,918 Fillmore 11,992 7,111 59% 4,604 1,377 Moorpark 25,494 5,613 22% 12,447 1,342 Ojai 7,613 928 12% 4,742 199 Oxnard 142,216 77,320 54% 50,398 13,889 Port Hueneme 20,319 6,063 30% 8,185 1,141 Santa Paula 25,062 14,753 59% 9,992 3,151 Simi Valley 100,217 12,702 13% 51,161 3,067 Thousand Oaks 104,352 10,019 10% 61,077 2,236 Ventura 92,575 16,251 18% 57,596 4,257 Ventura County 669,016 176,952 27% 336,094 36,607

% LATINOS Camarillo 6% Fillmore 30% Moorpark 11% Ojai 4% Oxnard 27% Port Hueneme 14% Santa Paula 31% Simi Valley 6% Thousand Oaks 4% Ventura 7% Ventura County 11%

Sources: 1990 U.S. Census, Ventura County Registrar of Voters, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project