About Turnout:

LatinPost.com presents "Turnout", a series that features leading Latino politicians, government leaders, and advocacy groups discussing and debating the most important issues facing the Latino voting bloc.

The following is an interview for Latin Post's Turnout, presented by politics reporter Michael Oleaga, featuring Rock the Vote President Ashley Spillane on the Latino voter turnout during the midterm elections and mobilizing millennials to have their voices heard on various issues.

--

Michael Oleaga: With the midterm elections now behind us, how do you think Rock the Vote -- as a large, nonprofit organization, which is aiming to drive youths to be active and go vote -- how do you think Rock the Vote did to mobilize Latino millennials?

Ashley Spillane: In 2014, Rock the Vote focused on inspiring and motivating young people to turn out in a midterm election that you had a lot of cynicism being expressed about whether young people would turn out at all, and a lack of investment by a lot of candidates who, you know, in fairness have less money to spend in a midterm election to get, to reach new voters and to persuade them to turn out to vote. So, we focused on our attention to young people nationwide trying to give them a message of encouragement and also draw direct parallels to issues that young people care about, and the impact that they can have if they actually turn out to vote.

We ran a couple of different ad campaigns. Our most notable [was] "Turnout for What" with Little Jon, which was so much fun, and really focused on reaching young people on the platforms that they frequent regularly. We are online, we have a mobile website, we have our online voter-registration technology that you can register to vote on your mobile phone, and we worked with people who, you know, are culturally resonant, that young people look up to, who they're following on these social media channels so we worked with Little Jon in the "Turnout for What" video, we had earlier in the year Kendall Jenner register to vote on her mobile phone. She has 13 million followers that she put that out to on Instagram and then on Twitter encouraging them to also get them to register to vote and show up on Election Day.

Oleaga: Now what about Latino millennials, specifically, what has Rock the Vote done for the midterm elections and perhaps future plans heading into 2016?

Spillane: So this year, we partnered with Voto Latino and ran a pretty intense and aggressive campaign to reach out to young Latinos in the southwestern part of the country to get them registered to vote and to make sure that, that young Latinos have the information that they need on Election Day to actually go out to the polls and vote. So, we ran online ads, we worked with celebrities likes Rosario Dawson and Wilmer Valderrama and were working to make sure that we were encouraging this growing demographic, you know there are 500,000 young Latinos turning 18 every year and making sure that they are included in the voting process and are having their voice heard and feeling empowered to participate is incredibly important to us. We also partnered with Univision and Nylon Español and worked with really great other folks that reached young Latinos, where they are and make it a seamless experience to get registered to vote and participate.

Oleaga: Was the voter outreach for Latino millennials, was it perhaps stronger this time around than 2012? What do you think of how you guys performed?

Spillane: Well, we, I think that we all acknowledge what an incredibly important demographic young Latinos are in this country. This is an incredibly important constituent, a growing constituency group that should have a say, and should have their voice heard and aren't participating as high levels as we need them to be, and so, we really focused our efforts this year on reaching this population, in particular, and feel like we did a good job. There are a lot of challenges and what has happened in several states in terms of voting rights and restrictions, you know, requiring voter ID of certain voters or like in Texas where you can vote with a gun license but not your student ID, that is a barrier to entry. In Arizona, where you need to provide proof of citizenship and certain instances just to get registered to vote, like these are all barriers to entry that young people, particularly young Latinos and other people of color face. It's important to us to fight and push back those things, and I think in spite of the challenges that we faced this year, we saw huge numbers of people registering to vote and huge numbers of people turning out to vote and I think it's important when we reflect on the narrative of 2014, it was a low-participation year across the board, people did not feel particularly energized about the candidates on the ballot and, you know, young people turned out in spite of that, at least the same rate as they did in 2010.

Oleaga: Right, now as you mentioned, the turnout might have been low for the midterms, some say it's because, for instance, President Barack Obama's immigration executive action was not announced originally August, September -- he delayed it. Let's say for example, he had announced it ahead of time, do you think that would have attracted more Latinos out to vote for the midterms?

Spillane: Young people in this country, even more than other generations, are incredibly optimistic about the future of the country and they're also incredibly committed to seeing forward progress and I think that the partisanship and the gridlock that you'd see in Washington is not particularly inspiring. So, I do think that...seeing forward motion on an issue that's important to them, you know, could've been motivating. I think that the elected officials that we have now and the candidates we'll see in the future need to focus their attention not on partisanship and not on negative negativity, but instead on the progress that can be made, the things that they can accomplish and change that can actually make people's lives better.

Oleaga: And, going on improving people's lives for the better, recent events following the midterm elections have definitely gotten people, notably millennials, out in the streets, raising their voices from racial profiling concerns, law enforcement issues and basic human rights, how do you think Rock the Vote can ensure similar activism can continue, I guess, into 2016 or future elections?

Spillane: Yeah, I think it's incredibly impressive what's happening around the country right now with so many young people out wanting to make their voice heard, wanting to have a say in what's going on in the country and wanting it to be a better place. And I think that what we are going to try, what we all have to do, not just Rock the Vote although it is a huge focus of ours, is draw the parallel between having a concern and having an issue that you want to see action taken on and voting. People are tired of the system, they're tired of partisanship, they're tired of bickering, and they're really focused - young people - are really focused on issues and they are demonstrating particularly around what's happening right now and being in the streets that they feel that this is a better way to bring about change than to go through the electoral process and we need to reestablish faith in the election process and make sure people know what kind of impact they can have, and I think what we'll do this year in 2015 is really focus on educating young people about the impact they can have about participating in local elections. There's local elections all over the country this year, everything from city council to mayor, you know, important positions that do, are responsible for appointing law enforcement, and in certain cases and prosecutors, and you know, really make differences in their local community and we want to be really helpful in explaining and articulating the impact you can have by turning out to vote.

Oleaga: And for 2015 and onwards, does Rock the Vote plan on still having similar or more mobilization efforts for Latino millennials to be active?

Spillane: Yeah...this statistic is really always pretty shocking to me and I think it's awesome, but this is the largest generation in our country's history. There are over 90 million of us millennials in the country and we're the most diverse generation, too. It's over 43 percent of this country's millennial population [that] are people of color and there is no, we are not-not organizing them, that, it's just not going to happen. We are focused on turning everybody out and getting everyone involved and the growth in the Latino community is so huge and so important and such an opportunity to make sure that a diversity of perspective is being heard, that you will see a lot of our efforts geared at that community.

Oleaga: Ashley Spillane, president of Rock the Vote, thank you very much.

Spillane: Thanks for having me.

-- END --

__

For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com.

Related