Record-High Latino Voter Registration, but Latino Voter Turnout Trends Low

The Pew Hispanic Center has recently released a report detailing the current registration of Latino voters for the upcoming presidential election, revealing an all-time high of nearly 24 million Latino voters registered to vote.  These 23.7 million registered Latino voters are up 22% since 2008; this aligns with the fact that Latino voters now comprise 11% of the nation's available voters, up from 9.5% in 2008.

Despite the high number of Latino registered voters, the registered Latinos are much less likely to show up at the polls than registered whites and blacks.  Half of the Latino voters who were registered in 2008 voted, while 65% and 66% of registered whites and blacks voted, respectively.  Additionally, 55% of Hispanics are ineligible to vote (for example, not U.S. citizens or too young to vote) while only 31% of blacks and 21% of whites are ineligible.

The disparity between eligible Latino voters and continued low turnout has caused quite a stir within the media.  In a piece analyzing this occurrence, Ed Pilkington of The Guardian states that "the statistics spell enormous potential rewards for any politician or political party who manages to release the Latino genie from the bottle."