Voting Heats Up in Nashua and Jamaica Plain

Stay-at-home Vietnamese voter Kimberly Tau casts her ballot on Election Day in Nashua, NH. (photo: E. A. de Oliveira, EthnicNEWz.org)

NASHUA, NH – The battleground state of New Hampshire is made of early-bird voters.

One hour after the polls opened at 6 a.m., 10 percent of registered voters at Ward 1, in Nashua, had already cast ballots at Broad Street Elementary School. About 6,400 voters were registered at Ward 1.

Registration booths are busy, too. According to Greg Poston, a retired American Airlines pilot and a volunteer, during this election's first three hours about 100 people had filled new voter registrations.

At this corner of Southern New Hampshire, immigrant voters are participating, although it was not yet confirmed if their voting volume is high at this point.

“I registered a Romanian woman who was very excited to have the chance to vote in this country,” said Poston.

With a high interest of the general population confirmed during election days, “list checkers,” party representatives who check the correct names and addresses of voters, are working hard. These list checkers are individuals appointed by party officials, with the approval of the local attorney general, who inspect the validity of registrations, but they are not allowed to speak directly to clerk volunteers.

“I am here to guarantee democracy at its best,” said a list checker who declined to provide his name.

A high turnout was also observed at the Main Dunstable Elementary School, in Ward 5. Volunteers told me that more than 1,000 people had voted in the morning. The ward has 5,800 voters registered.

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NASHUA, NH – Election Day progresses without any major disruptions. Early this morning, a lady was spotted wearing an Obama T-shirt close to the voting booth and was simply asked to cover it with her coat.

Foot traffic appears similar to that in all city wards, but things are expected to step up a bit at lunch hour.

Turnout of immigrant voters at polling places is steady. According to Census data, New Hampshire has 32,000 Latinos and increasing Russian and Vietnamese populations.

“I feel great and proud to be able to vote. As an immigrant I fight my way to be where I am in this country,” said Kimberly Tau, a Vietnamese stay-at-home mom.

For Tau, a Nashua resident who migrated to the U.S. some 25 years ago, “this is the day you can truly stand for what you believe in.” This election season, she says, local issues matter as much as a national crisis.

Tau says she truly believes that American elections are fair because “back in my country, a lot of time voting was fixed.”

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BOSTON, Mass. - Heloisa Galvão, president of the Brazilian Women’s Group, is concerned that immigrant voters don’t have all the information they need to vote today.

“Yesterday we received at least nine calls from people who simply didn’t know where they should go to vote,” said Galvão, who headed to a polling place in Jamaica Plain, at 7 a.m. [Jamaica Plain is an an area of Boston that has many Latin American immigrants.]

Today, the Women’s Group, an organization that trains Brazilian housecleaners to use products based on natural formulas, will have two staffers by the phone to help voters.

According to Immigration and Naturalization data, 53.045 Brazilians were naturalized in this country between 1991 e 2007. In Massachusetts, at least 3,900 become American citizens between 2004 and August of the current year.  [Immigration and Naturalization Service is a former government agency that was replaced by US Citizenship and Immigration Services.]

During Vem Viver ("Come Live") talk show at WSRO 650 AM radio station in Massachusetts, which has Brazilian listeners, callers showed much support for Senator Barack Obama. The Democrat candidate for president led opponent John McCain with wide margins on two days: 14 to 6 yesterday, and 39 to 10 last Friday.

Despite the heavy support for the Democrats, many Brazilians believe that won’t be the case in the future. With at least 60 evangelical churches serving Brazilians in the state, some predict that Republican support might spike in the coming years.

source:  EthnicNEWz.org

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