Getting out the minority vote
Texas Organizing Project helps make election relevant to increase turnout from communities
When she lined up to cast an early ballot on Tuesday, Olga Beiza peeked around the corner at the voting booths inside a room at Lone Star College Victory Center in northwest Houston, the presidential election just two weeks away.
“This is my first time,” she told a worker. “I’m nervous.”
Beiza, a 41-year-old Mexican immigrant, had never partici- pated in any election despite being a registered voter since 2004. But this year was different.
“There’s been a lot of racism in this election,” she said before going inside. “I feel like I could make a difference. I have to do it for my friends and the people I know.”
About three weeks earlier, Beiza had been approached at her Inwood Forest home by a member of the Texas Organizing Project, a liberal group that advocates for low-income communities in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio through a combination of policy research, political action and — its hallmark — aggressive community organizing.
In a state where legions of analysts and academics have long speculated about why Hispanic turnout has remained low, TOP’s leaders think they know the answer — and what to do about it.
Hispanics will vote, they say, when politics are made relevant at the neighborhood level. And once that happens, getting them to the polls typically takes at least four contacts, they’ve learned. Campaigns that roll in a week or two before an election fail, they contend, because they don’t do either of those things.
In the 2012 general election, roughly 2 million registered black and Hispanic voters in the state didn’t go to the polls, according to a private database TOP uses. Texas usually ranks among the lowest states in voter turnout, and its growing minority population — especially Hispanics — has yet to participate in large numbers.
But that was before Donald
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee who has talked tough on immigration and alienated minority groups. Record early voting totals suggest both he and his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, may both be uniquely energizing — and polarizing — candidates.
This year, TOP has targeted 340,000 mostly black and Hispanic registered voters in Harris County, plus another 35,000 in San Antonio and Dallas where local elections aren’t as contested.
Trump is polling at only 3 percent above Clinton in the usually bright red state of Texas — a state Republican Mitt Romney won by 16 percentage points in 2012 — and TOP members are using the billionaire businessman as motivation to get first-time voters to cast ballots for president and in important downballot races.
The number of registered voters in the county with Hispanic surnames alone has increased by 22 percent since 2012. TOP sees an opportunity to make history.
A week before Beiza cast her first vote, Mary Moreno, communications director at TOP, looked out across a sea of faces gathered at a small canvassing center in north Houston and explained the mission.
“The people whose doors you’re knocking on today, they are not being counted in those polls,” Moreno said. “We are knocking on the doors of people who are not likely voters, who are inconsistent. We could really shock the country with what we’re doing here.”
Several dozen mostly black or Hispanic TOP workers — among hundreds hired part-time for election canvassing — peered into iPods with the names and addresses of those they would have to reach that day.
They had done the same for much of the previous two months, taking shifts to knock on the doors of many homes in the county’s predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods: Third Ward, Sunny Side, South Houston, Near Northside and Pasadena, among others. TOP analyzed county information to identify registered voters who are unlikely to vote. ‘Knock on doors!’
County maps, name charts and step-by-step door-knocking directions were plastered on walls. A cartoon drawing of Trump hung near the entrance.
“Is it right that Donald Trump uses everybody to rally their base? AfricanAmericans, Latinos, women — he bashes everyone,” Moreno said to the crowd. “No!” they responded. “So what are we going to do about it?”
“Knock on doors!” they said before fanning out in their teal “TOP” shirts to the neighborhoods.
TOP has 38 full-time staff members across its three cities, with 15 based in Houston. In 2012, TOP targeted approximately 150,000 voters in Harris County. About 51,000 showed up at the polls, its records show.
“Voters that stay at home — what they say to us is that nobody is speaking to them,” Crystal Zermeno, TOP’s political strategist, said. “Particularly for communities of color, they are left out of the process. You go to some of these neighborhoods, and there’s not even (campaign) signs. If communities don’t vote, then campaigns don’t talk to those voters. We’re trying to buck that trend.”
While Trump’s rhetoric on minorities has placed extra emphasis on the presidential race, Zermeno said TOP’s main goal is to effect change at a local level, focusing on issues that resonate in people’s everyday lives.
One example: Bail reform in the county’s jails. More than 70 percent of those in the jails are pretrial defendants who have not been convicted of a crime. On many occasions, those jailed are low- income individuals who can’t post bail, an issue present statewide. Pounding the pavement
John Rodriguez steeled himself for a long, hot afternoon. Minutes after Moreno had finished her speech, the TOP field worker grabbed his tealcolored shoulder bag and hopped in his car. A New York native who has lived most of his life outside of the U.S. in Latin countries like Colombia, he’s learned to navigate sprawling Houston. On his way to his territory in South Houston, he dropped off other TOP workers before arriving at Edward Drive in the South Shaver Park neighborhood in late afternoon.
He faced three hours of walking door to door, 66 homes in all. He carried his TOP iPod and a stack of handouts that detailed each candidate TOP endorsed, as well as voting information.
Each TOP member followed a script for each of the homes they visited. The “MiniVan” application on their iPods told them which registered voter lived there, how many times they had been previously visited or contacted by TOP (with four being the magic number) and if they had committed to vote yet.
After knocking on several doors and getting no answer, Rodriguez approached a one-floor, white brick house on Bonnie Street. Sweat trickled down his face from his black baseball cap. He knocked on the door. A woman named Maria Velia answered.
“What issues do you care about the most?” he asked.
“For me, immigration is the most important,” Velia responded
“There is much injustice with immigration, right?” Rodriguez said. “Here are the candidates we support. Do you support them? Will you vote?”
Yes, she said, explaining that Trump has to be stopped.
Rodriguez handed Velia a “commitment card,” which he carried with him and took out when people said they would vote. On the card, they could circle a day to vote early, and TOP would mail the card back and also call them to remind them.
Velia circled the first day of early voting — Oct. 24.
“Thank you,” Rodriguez said. “I won’t bother you anymore.”
Olga Beiza committed to vote on one of the first early voting days when TOP visited her home. She really had never pondered voting before in all of her years living here.
She emigrated from Acapulco to Houston in 1989 with her sister and two brothers after the death of her grandmother, whom they were living with. Her mother had come about 10 years earlier to find better work opportunities, and her father had died in a car accident when she eight.
Beiza, a schoolteacher at Aldine ISD, became a U.S. citizen in 1999. When she registered to vote, George W. Bush was still serving his first term as president, and there were an estimated 3.5 million fewer Hispanics in Texas than now.
Beiza knew voting was important, but she hadn’t felt motivated to make the drive to a polling station during previous elections. She didn’t think politicians were speaking to topics that interested her, and she didn’t believe her voice would really matter. It also was a cultural thing, she said. Voting was never emphasized in her home while growing up. Making a difference
But everything changed when Donald Trump called Mexicans that were crossing the border rapists and criminals more than a year ago during his announcement to become a candidate for president.
Beiza watched, and she became agitated. She knew several Mexicans who had migrated simply to find better jobs and support their families. They were hard workers, not rapists, she thought.
She began watching debates for the first time in her life and started thinking about voting.
Then TOP knocked at her door. They explained that this election would be critical, both locally and nationally. She listened and became more motivated. When TOP left, she knew she had to vote — no more excuses.
“When you have people like TOP take their time out to come knock on my door, it made me feel like ‘Yeah, I need to do it,’ ” she said. “Trump is talking about how he is going to take immigrants back. I don’t agree with it. If I can make a difference, I will go and do it.”