'If we're not voting, we're not changing anything': One Arizona launches effort to register 250,000 voters

The One Arizona coalition on Saturday launched a new campaign with a goal of registering 250,000 people to vote and ensuring full participation in the 2020 census.

One Arizona is a coalition of nearly two dozen community groups that united against SB 1070 when it was introduced in 2010.

The group registered 190,000 people to vote in 2018 and held an event Saturday at Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix to launch the new effort for voter registration.

Lizette Zamudio, a deputy field director for One Arizona, hadn't yet received the total number of people registered during the event by 1 p.m. but said that many people who showed up said they'd already been registered by a member organization in the past.

For those people who did not need to be registered on Saturday, Zamudio said the event served to disseminate information about the upcoming census.

Zamudio herself is not a registered voter, citing her status as a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient, but said that she believes her story helps her relate more to people in the community.

"My story and who I am can inspire a lot of folks, a lot of young folks who come to Carl Hayden, folks who are a lot like me, who feel like it's really intimidating to get this information anywhere else," she said. "Now we've created this space where it's me, the person in the same shoes as you, giving you that information."

Zamudio described the 2016 election as a "wake-up call for a lot of young people," adding that young people One Arizona approaches typically agree to register to ask how they can volunteer to help others register.

She said she hopes the fervor for voting is not just applied to the presidential election, saying that local elections have a more direct impact on communities and should also have high voter participation.

Phoenix College student Fhernanda Ortiz has been volunteering with Arizona Center for Empowerment for three years now, having been inspired to start participating in the voting process when an ACE employee spoke to her class during her sophomore year at Alhambra High School.

That conversation got her thinking about issues she wants to help fix through the voting process, specifically recalling her uncle who has schizophrenia but cannot afford his medication.

Ortiz registered to vote as soon as she turned 18 and has been working ever since to ensure everyone who is eligible does the same.

"If we're not voting we're not changing anything," she said. "People should know that your vote matters. It's not even just the presidential stuff, it's the local stuff like healthcare (and) education."

"Go out there and vote," she said. "Vote for anything that we can...si se puede (yes we can)!"

Kevin Rodriguez, who also works as a canvasser with ACE, single-handedly registered more than 1,300 people to vote during 2018.

He echoed wishes from some that Arizona become a "purple" state instead of its traditional red state label, saying that those hopes would only come to fruition if people register to vote and show up on election days.

"We can get there, we can go out there and register a lot more people to vote, we can get our voice heard... we just have to follow that process and have that passion for it."

Rodriguez said that people should be aware of their friends and family members' circumstances when voting.

"That's how you take care of a community," he said. "At the end of the day you're living in a community where a lot of people are affected, but also there's a lot of people that don't have a voice that are affected. I feel like that's how you bring them together, how you come together and at the end of the day, make your voice heard."

The deadline to register to vote in Arizona's March 17 presidential preference election is Feb. 18, while the deadline for the Aug. 4 primary election is July 6.

The deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 3 general election is Oct. 5.

Reach the reporter at bfrank@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8529. Follow her on Twitter @brieannafrank.

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