Retreat by immigrant rights "voters"

Houston Chronicle:

"Today we march, tomorrow we vote" was the endless refrain as hundreds of thousands of Hispanics spilled onto the streets of Houston, Los Angeles and other cities last spring in protest of a House bill aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration.

But with Tuesday's election approaching, immigrant-rights activists are nowhere close to delivering on their vow to add a million or more Hispanics to voter rolls in Texas and across the United States.

"We won't be ready for this election, but we will be ready for the next one," said Maria Jimenez, special projects coordinator with the Central American Resource Center in Houston.

Hispanic voter registration kept pace with increases in total registration in some of the cities where massive immigration rallies took place. But the registration totals didn't spike the way activists hoped.

In Harris County, voter registrations since the start of the year by citizens with Spanish-sounding surnames grew 5.3 percent as overall registrations rose 3.6 percent, according to the registrar's office.

But because Hispanics represent a small share of the overall vote, the increase made only a fraction of a difference, with Spanish-sounding surnames now accounting for 14.7 percent of the county's 1,924,573 registered voters, up from 14.4 percent at the beginning of the year.

Elsewhere, elections officials report no major increases in Hispanic registration.

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There is also the likely hood that many Hispanic voters favor the rule of law and want immigration laws enforced, particularly those who are in this country legally. The fact is that many of those people who were in streets demonstrating are not eligible to vote anyway unless they register and vote illegally. That possibility is another reason why some Democrats oppose voter ID.