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Non-partisan Internet Campaign to Target Asian Votes

By Maggie Lee | Yellowworld.org
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With just over a month until election day, Asian American community portal Yellowworld.org, the Asian Pacific American Bar Association (APABA), Asian Professional Exchange (APEX), and 80-20 Initiative have joined to launch an eleventh-hour web campaign targeting Asian Americans who remain unregistered to vote.

The campaign, Are You Registered? (http://areyouregistered.com), will use common Internet messaging and branding tools to reach pockets of unregistered Asian American online users. Elbert Oh, president and founder of Yellowworld.org explained, "Our purpose is two-fold. Our first aim is to leverage real-time collaborative web tools to penetrate the heavy online presence of Asians. In turn, we convey a general message to local, state, and federal legislative officials that the Asian Pacific Islander community is rapidly-growing and can no longer be ignored."

Asian American Presence in Cyberspace
According to a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, fully 70% of Asian Americans across the country are online on a typical day. Comparatively, 58% of white Internet users go online each day, along with 50% of Latino Americans and 43% of African Americans. Not only are Asian Americans the most experienced group of Internet users in the nation, they are also one of its youngest. While 41% of Internet users in the nation are between the ages of 18 and 34, Asian Americans comprise 63% of the group. That makes them a disproportionately large percentage of a considerable base of potential voters found on the Internet. Asian American Internet users are also avid information gatherers, with 34% getting their daily news online, 20% viewing financial information, and 19% obtaining political news and commentary.

Asian American Political Participation
Historically, Asian American voter participation has been low. A Current Population Survey says the voter registration rates of the Asian American population are the lowest of all ethnic groups: nationwide, only half of eligible Asian Americans (53%) are registered to vote. The Asian American community's failure to participate in politics stems from a number of factors, including ignorance of the political process and a distrust of government and politics carried over from their un-democratic home countries. Still other reasons may include the relatively recent official government response to the Korean American community during the Los Angeles riots -- viewed by many Asian Americans as inadequate -- and the federal espionage investigation that singled out Los Alamos Labs scientist Wen Ho Lee in 2000. That so many Asian Americans feel disempowered when it comes to political decision-making may reflect the marginalization of Asian Americans by government institutions.

Minority Voters Could Decide Presidential Election
Against the backdrop of the Bush victory over Al Gore in 2000 by 271 to 267 electoral votes, experts believe that minority voters may have even greater consequence than ever in battleground states where a few thousand votes could decide the presidential election. "The last presidential election definitely showed us that small numbers can have a serious impact. Had Asians registered at the same rate as white citizens, the result would have been approximately 500,000 additional votes cast in 2000," said Kasie Lee, board member of Yellowworld.org, referring to a study conducted by the Urban Institute Immigration Studies Program. The same study indicated that Asian American voting could be decisive in swing-states Minnesota, Nevada, and Washington, where Asian Americans comprise about 5% of the residents in each state. If white American voters are split in those states, a strong minority vote could easily tip the election. Nonetheless, mainstream institutions have not engaged in mass mobilization efforts aimed at Asian Americans, leaving organizations like Are You Registered? challenged with the task of reaching eligible voters through both traditional and creatively non-traditional means. Elbert Oh is confident of the Internet's power to mobilize the community: "Like many of our other online advocacy campaigns, we are constrained by time, lack of resources, and geography. Still, the power and effectiveness of web communication accomplishes a focused effort with brevity and simplicity, a good example being our campaign to halt sales of the racially offensive 'Kung Fool' costume two years ago. In a single day, our campaign website amassed over 30,000 hits, mostly by Asian American online users."

Beyond Election 2004
Beyond the focus of the 2004 election, Are You Registered? aims to compel both major parties to address the community's interests by shaping the Asian American bloc into a political force proportionate to its fast growing numbers. In 2000, Asians made up 4.2% of the population, but accounted for only 1.9% of the votes cast. By 2050, the Asian/Pacific Islander American population will jump to 10% (34.4 million).

Yellowworld.org and other Asian American advocacy groups additionally aim to unify the burgeoning various Asian ethnicities that, aside from a history of conflict between their home countries, share little in cultural tradition and nothing in language. Indeed, a 2004 political survey on Asian Americans by Pei-te Lien concluded that the future direction of Asian American voter participation hinges on, inter alia, the development of a pan-ethnic, or Asian American, identity amongst the disparate individual ethnic communities. She posited that a supplanting umbrella community would result in higher political participation because of shared racial concerns and feelings of linked fate.