Latinos are less likely to vote than white people according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Locally there’s an effort to get more Spanish-speaking voters to the polls. Three Cal Poly students teamed up with the San Luis Obispo County clerk-recorder's office and various nonprofits to get in touch with community members.
Together they held workshops for Latino voters and touched on the importance of voting. They also covered the different measures they can expect to see on their ballot for the upcoming election.
Cal Poly senior Darius Rogness, who is from the Nipomo area, focused his efforts on south county.
“As I’m studying political science, I continue to learn more and more how disproportionately impacted and misrepresented our Spanish speaking community is, and our Latino community. And so that's really why I really wanted to get involved in this,” Rogeness said.
Cal Poly student Alondra Cardoso worked on the project with Rogeness. Her outreach focused on north county. She said she hopes to change minds when it comes to voting.
“It's like, ‘oh well you know my vote doesn't really matter, like what is it going to do? What is my vote going to do?’ But really going back and informing them, like, your vote does matter especially for local elections,” Cardoso said.
About 25% of people in San Luis Obispo County are Latino or Hispanic and about 17-percent of people speak a language other than English at home, according to the US Census. Rogeness and Cardoso spoke with hundreds of them this election season.
The two are graduating seniors, so they won't be around to continue this effort next year, but they hope other students will be inspired to pick up the work.
