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A total of 7.8 million Hispanics – coincidentally representing 7.8 percent of the electorate – will vote in the legislative elections in November, according to a new report from the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.
Six months prior to the elections, the number of Latino voters will increase by 1.2 million, or 17.7 percent, compared with the 2010 mid-term elections, when 6.6 million Hispanics went to the polls, according to NALEO figures.
The projections made by NALEO show that the Latino population this year will reach 25.5 million people, of whom 12.8 million will be registered to vote and an estimated 7.8 million of them will actually cast ballots.
Thus, the Latino vote, which was a key element in the Senate elections in states like Colorado and Nevada in 2010, is “once again posed to play such a decisive role,” NALEO said.
NALEO’s estimate in voter numbers for November is below the figure for the 2012 presidential balloting, when 11.2 million Hispanics out of the 13.7 million who were registered went to the polls.
In addition, NALEO published another report in which it evaluates the possible impacts of a congressional bill that protects the right to vote of minorities and concluded that more than 4.5 million Latinos would directly benefit from the protections included in that text.
This bill was introduced in Congress in January after the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which obligated states – mainly in the South – with a tradition of discrimination to receive the permission of the federal government before undertaking any electoral modifications.
Published in Latino Daily News