This guest column is in response to recent controversies in Doña Ana County that you can read about by clicking here, here and here.
By Dana Gallegos
On Monday, ACORN registered its 40,000th voter in New Mexico this year, making this already the largest drive in state history and bringing to 92,000 the total of New Mexicans ACORN has registered since 2000.
However, ACORN doesn’t just register new voters. We make sure they get the encouragement and support they need to cast a ballot, many for the first time. In fact, a study of the voters we registered in New Mexico in 2004 showed that 65 percent of the people that ACORN helped get on the voter rolls voted on Election Day.
It comes as no surprise, then, that ACORN is the target of countless attacks. The fact that ACORN gets tens of thousands of hard-working New Mexicans voting — particularly Hispanics, Native Americans and other members of New Mexico’s diverse minorities — is a threat to those who believe they have something to gain by keeping people from participating in elections. Even though ACORN’s efforts are non-partisan and enfranchise thousands of new members of every political party under the sun, some are threatened by the other things for which ACORN stands.
Remember, ACORN led the campaign that increased the minimum wage in Albuquerque and statewide. ACORN helped enact one of the strongest anti-predatory lending laws in the country, driving crooked lenders like Ameriquest out of New Mexico and protecting thousands of homeowners from the Countrywides of the world that have sent foreclosures skyrocketing around the country — but not in New Mexico. And ACORN has helped 800 legal residents become U.S. citizens over the past year.
In short, we are proud of our work, and we have the stamina to register another 20,000 to 30,000 voters in New Mexico before the summer is over. The simple thanks that we get from the hundreds of New Mexicans that we help register to vote every day is enough to keep us going.
Gallegos is an ACORN member.
By Dana Gallegos