There’s been a lot of talk lately about Asian Americans being a growing political force, especially after a loud segment of the Chinese American community stopped SCA5. That bill was aimed at bringing back affirmative action to college admissions in California.
But none of that “power” or influence will mean a thing if they don’t exercise that political power at the voting box.
New research from the Pew Research Center found voting participation of Asian Americans lags way behind that of whites and blacks.
Only about three in ten eligible Asian American voters went to the polls in 2010 ,the last midterm election. That compares to 49 percent of whites and 44 percent of blacks. Hispanic voting turnout was roughly the same as Asian Americans.
Asian immigrants voted at about the same rate as American born Asians.
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The biggest reason given by Asian Americans for not voting is that they were too busy. That’s bull. How hard is it to lick a stamp and mail in your ballot? How hard is it to drive to the polls? That takes less time than a trip to the grocery store.
You can read more details about this gap in voting participation when broken down by education level and family income at the Pew Research Center . You may be surprised.
