New Americans Vote 2008:

Our Vote is Power!

New Americans Vote 2008 was our campaign to register immigrant voters and turn them out to vote as a part of ICIRR's integrated civic engagement program called the New Americans Democracy Project (NADP). NADP is an integrated campaign to increase civic participation through voting, citizenship and volunteerism in order to build power for the immigrant community. We prioritize new and infrequent immigrant voters in regions of high Latino, Asian, Arab, and Polish populations (according to census and voter data).

New Americans Vote 2008 Results

  • Registered 25,815 new immigrant voters.
  • Successfully recruited, trained, and placed 20 New American Democracy Fellows in 20 different host/member organizations
  • Recruited 1,402 Election Day volunteers
  • Targeted 103,993 Latino, Asian and Arab voters for turn-out (501 c3) Of this total, 59,356 Latino, Asian, Middle eastern voters were part of an intense multi-contact GOTV that included 45,738 infrequent voters and 13,618 consistent voters in the same 377 targeted precincts.
  • From June 28th to July 3rd ICIRR sponsored an intensive “New Americans Democracy Boot Camp” for 63 immigrant electoral organizers from 16 states across the U.S., to train them in the basics of electoral and community organizing
  • ICIRR created a new non-partisan 501(c)4 sister organization, Illinois Immigrant Action, which can engage in more targeted issue advocacy work, and which raised and spent $473,000 mobilizing immigrant voters in the 10th and 11th Congressional Districts (see report)
  • ICIRR and its members sponsored two large immigrant GOTV rallies as well as 6 local community and/or candidate forums.
  • On October 27th ICIRR sponsored the New Americans GOTV Rally. A multiethnic crowd of close to 2,000 packed Teamster’s City, and heard support for immigrant issues from Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago; Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan; Congressman Luis Gutierrez, Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle; and some 25 other state and city level elected officials.
  • ICIRR partnered with Univision Radio News to conduct a first ever immigrant voter exit poll, tracking immigrant voting patterns and attitudes to issues as well as political parties (see results)

    • New Americans Vote 2008 is a non-partisan civic engagement program that seeks to impact the immigrant-related issues that our membership and allies prioritize. To learn about the values we hold as an immigrant community, please check out our Issue Platform.

    For more information about the New Americans Democracy Project, or New Americans Vote 2008, please contact:

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    © 2009 Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights