It was a Tuesday afternoon at the YMCA in Flushing, Queens, as a steady stream of kids and their parents streamed in for their after-school programs. On the second floor, many were gathered at tables set with trays of mooncakes to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival in the Chinese community and Chuseok in the Korean community. But more importantly, next to the festive treats were several educational materials and pamphlets in English, Chinese and Korean that answered a key question: how to register to vote.
On September 17, the Ming Kwon Community Action Center, the Asian American Equality Association and the Korean Chinese American Council hosted tables and related events as part of National Voter Registration Day, with the ultimate goal being to increase voter registration within the Asian American community, which historically has the lowest voter turnout among major ethnic groups.
Members of APA VOICE, New York State’s first pan-Asian redistricting coalition, organized five National Voter Registration Day registration drives targeting different Asian ethnic groups in different neighborhoods across New York City on Tuesday.
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The Ming Kwon Community Action Center, the Asian American Equality Association and the Korean Chinese American Council set up a voter registration table at the Flushing YMCA on Tuesday. Photo courtesy of the Ming Kwon Community Action Center.
A new report from APIAVote and Target Smart shows that voter registrations are on the rise among Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities. From January to June 2020, there were 550,682 new registrations, but in the same period in 2024, that number jumped to 787,982, a 43% increase. This increase outpaced the increase in voter registrations among Black and white people during the same period.
New York City data reflects this trend.
Melinda Wang of the MinKwon Center and APA VOICE points out that Asian voters saw the largest increase in voter registration among racial groups in New York, with Asian voter registrations increasing by 8.6% between January 1, 2020 and the general election registration deadline of October 9, 2020.
Mohamed Q. Amin, founder and executive director of the Caribbean Equality Project, has also seen a significant increase in voter registration in Richmond Hill, which has a large South Asian American and Indo-Caribbean American population. Amin said a recent voter registration drive saw registrations increase from three or four people every three hours to seven or eight in just two hours. “This shows that people are excited about the election,” Amin said. “People are becoming more politically active and are eager to contribute to our political power-building movement by voting.”
Also read: First-time voting explained for naturalized citizens
Yong Park, director of New American Initiatives at the Flushing YMCA, moved to the United States from Korea five years ago. This year is her first time voting. It took her five years to decide to become a U.S. citizen, but it took her less than a second to register to vote. “As the population grows and we’re finally getting recognized, I thought I’d give it a go. I want to get more involved in civic, political and social issues,” Park said, adding that she sees voting as a civic duty. “If all Asians across the country get involved in civic activism, we have a voice,” Park said.
According to Christine Chen, co-founder and executive director of APIAVote, the dramatic increase in voter registration among Asian American voters, who historically have the lowest voter turnout in elections, is the result of consistently incorporating voter registration into community programs over the years.
APIAVote works with local nonprofit partners in 29 states, including all battleground states, to empower Asian American communities through voting and civic engagement. Chen noted that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in anti-Asian hate has led to a significant increase in Asian American voter registration. “We remember the scars of 2020,” Chen said, explaining that the pandemic and the resulting discrimination served as a wake-up call to voter participation.
Breaking the vicious cycle and moving forward
The increase in voter registration among Asian voters is not a given, as Asian community organizations work to break what Lin-Yin He, associate director of research at the Asian American Federation, calls a “vicious cycle.” That cycle, she explains, is that Asian Americans are often overlooked in campaigns, which in return leads to lower participation. Campaigns tend to overlook them because of the costs involved in targeting such a diverse community, and label them as “unlikely voters” because of historically low voter turnout.
“Many new voters have heard of the two presidential candidates but don’t know much about their policies,” Mei Li, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, told Documented at a voter registration event near Manhattan’s Chinatown on Tuesday. “The candidates are lacking in outreach. They’re well-known, but they should be going out into the communities and telling people why they should vote for them.”
Also read: AAPI community seeks to rally young Asian voters in New York
“But when community organizations and campaigns provide outreach that is culturally relevant and delivered in voters’ native languages, turnout increases significantly. This was seen in the recent special election for New York’s 3rd Congressional District, where Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) saw his victory as an example of the success of this approach,” He said.
He also said that while safety and education have always been top priorities for many Asian American voters, the community is by no means monolithic and Asian Americans are not a single-issue voter.
Trisha Kim, a community organizer at the Min Kwon Center, echoed a similar sentiment: A wide range of issues, including immigration, job security, access to healthcare and housing, are top concerns for many first-time voters, she said, especially in the context of the 2024 election. Meanwhile, for communities like Indo-Caribbean and LGBTQ+ voters, issues like reproductive justice, immigration, public safety and job security are key drivers of participation, Amin said.
Also read: Can Green Card Holders and Other Immigrants Vote?
The goals of many Asian community organizations go beyond voter registration. Tools such as the Asian American Federation’s ballot builder, available in eight languages and designed to provide logistical information and help voters understand candidates’ positions, are part of an effort to ensure voter engagement goes beyond registration. Additionally, the organization is working with 10 partners to test the effectiveness of relationship text messaging compared to traditional door-to-door canvassing, asking volunteers to send text messages to contacts in their preferred language.
The Asian American Federation and its community partners hosted a conference to promote Asian American voter registration in New York on September 11, 2024. Photo by April Hsu for Documented.
Diya Basu Sen, executive director of Sapna NYC, emphasized the role that voter education plays in cultivating an informed electorate. She noted that while registering to vote is an important first step, essential to meaningful voter participation is ensuring voters know their rights, understand the issues, and know how to use tools like ranked choice voting in next year’s city council elections. “We want to make sure that our community is not just registered, but that they actually know how to use their voice and stay connected,” she said.
