(MintPress) – The Campaign for Arizona’s Future, a coalition of immigrants and allied activists, is working to unseat the controversial sheriff, Joe Arpaio, in the upcoming November election. Arpaio long a proponent of Arizona’s SB 1070 and supports legislation, specifically the “show me your papers” provision allowing officers to stop and question anyone about their immigration status.

The campaign, also known as “Adios Arpaio,” has been organized by a bevy of Latino, student and faith based organizations seeking to mobilize a grassroots opposition to Arpaio’s tenure as sheriff by registering 40,000 new voters in mostly underserved, Spanish speaking communities across Maricopa county in Arizona.

Action through grassroots organizing

The action may not seem consequential in a county with a population of more than 3 million. However, the registration drive, the largest in Arizona state history, has already helped to register more than 23,000 new voters in mostly Latino communities across the county.

Supporters have lent their endorsement to Paul Penzone, Arpaio’s Democratic challenger, in the three-way race for Maricopa County sheriff next month.

Daria Ovide, a volunteer on the campaign wrote in a blog post last month, “As they continue voter registration and education across the county, the campaign’s volunteers will educate new voters to support Penzone, a Democrat, and reject the independent challenger, Mike Stauffer. The men are in a three-way race against incumbent Joe Arpaio.”

While Arpaio maintains a lead heading into the final weeks of the campaign season, the grassroots action has helped to boost Penzone’s favorability, and it could lead to an upset victory for the Democrat in next month’s election.

The latest poll numbers show Arpaio with 46.8 percent of the possible vote, a four point lead over Penzone who trails with 42.1 percent. Just 3.4 percent of voters support Stauffer, the independent candidate. However, over 7 percent of potential voters remain undecided, a large enough percentage to swing the vote in Penzone’s favor should the “Adios Arpaio” campaign make a compelling case among undecided voters.

Joe Arpaio, or “Sheriff Joe,” captured national attention this year for his hardline support of Maricopa County police using discriminatory tactics, including racial profiling, to thwart illegal immigration. Critics charge that during his tenure as sheriff, Arpaio instructed his police force to single out non-white Spanish speakers in a hunt for illegals that has become the cause celebre of Arpaio’s administration. Arpaio has held the position of sheriff in Maricopa county since 1993.

In May, the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Arpaio, an action supported by many within the Latino community in Arizona and by national rights groups. The Justice Department lawsuit claimed, “The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) and Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio have engaged and continue to engage in a pattern or practice of unlawful discriminatory police conduct directed at Latinos in Maricopa County and jail practices that unlawfully discriminate against Latino prisoners with limited English language skills.”

The lawsuit against Arpaio and the tactics of the Maricopa County Police Department came after a 2008 letter from Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon accused Arpaio of “a pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests.”

Hardliners like Arpaio have operated inside a culture of impunity, supported by militia border patrols like the Minutemen and by conservative tea party groups. The legal action against Sheriff Arpaio is ongoing. However, the sheriff could be looking for a new job should voters send a clear message at the polls next month.

Like the “Adios Arpaio” campaign, other groups have emerged, seeking to change the conversation about immigration, including in communities outside Arizona and on a national stage.

The “No Papers No Fear” bus tou, took dozens of undocumented immigrants across the U.S. this summer to tell their stories and bring attention to the record number of deportations during the Obama administration. During President Obama’s first term, more than 1 million undocumented immigrants were deported, most originally from countries in Latin America.

A larger set of immigrant problems for Arizona immigrants

Arizona has been at the forefront of immigration and legal reform in the U.S. for many years. The 1966 Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona was a monumental decision establishing the now ubiquitous “Miranda rights” for those arrested by the police.

Ernesto Arturo Miranda, the son of a Mexican immigrant, was born in Mesa Arizona in 1941. Miranda, a day laborer, was arrested on charges of raping and kidnapping an 18-year-old girl in 1963. After interrogating Miranda for more than two hours, the police coerced a signed confession from Miranda. At no point during the interrogation was Miranda informed of his constitutional right to legal counsel, nor was he given the opportunity to speak with a public defender.

This led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1966, mandating that police departments inform citizens of their constitutional right to legal counsel at the time of an arrest. While the case was a major step forward for the rights of Americans, particularly those in poor Spanish speaking communities, the new wave of police crackdowns supported by state legislation has led to new forms of political mobilization across the U.S., especially in Arizona and other states with large Hispanic populations.

The Supreme Court struck down a majority of Arizona’s immigration law, SB 1070, earlier this summer. Among those provisions declared unconstitutional were requirements that all immigrants obtain and carry immigration registration papers on their person at all times.

Additionally the court overturned the provision making it a criminal offense for an undocumented immigrant to seek work or hold a job and eliminated the provision which allowed police to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants without warrants.

Five states, including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah, have modeled their state immigration laws after Arizona, which could create a difficult battle to reform state laws following the definitive Supreme Court decision.

However, the key provision not struck down by the court, the “show me your papers” provision, allows officers to question anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally. Arpaio has been one of the most vocal supporters of SB 1070.

A record 24 million Latino voters will be eligible to vote across America this election season. While the growth of eligible Hispanic voters may not be the determining factor in the 2012 election, both presidential candidates have begun to use burgeoning Spanish and bilingual media as a means to reach this growing voting demographic.