ORLANDO, Fla. – Making sure you know how, when and where to register are key messages of National Voter Registration Day.
A national group called Poder LatinX set up a booth on UCF’s campus to help get the message out to the Latino community.
Organizer’s told News 6, “Here in Central Florida, we do have like a large population of like Latino voters from Puerto Ricans, Venezolanos, Colombians and another such groups. So there’s a lot there’s a large community here, and we just have to work to get them out to the way they can vote, and then they can help improve their condition.”
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The CEO of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials met with the Orange, Osceola, Seminole County supervisors of elections today to help find ways to inform and clear up voter misinformation.
“The fact that Latinos are being targeted to be misinformed, swayed, confused means one thing that the Latino vote matters,” Arturo Vargas said. “If it didn’t matter, people would ignore us... one of the things that we’re seeing about misinformation is that if you vote by mail, that your vote is not going to be counted or that you can’t trust the mail system. And that’s not true. the fact is that more people than ever today are choosing to vote by mail.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between the 2012 and 2022 American Community Surveys, the number of Hispanics in Osceola County increased by more than 102,000 people. They don’t all vote along the same party lines, and many are undecided according to the Osceola County’s Supervisor of Elections, Mary Jane Arrington.
“...37% of our voters are registered with no party affiliation,” Arrington said. “Orange County is second in the state, and they are not even close.”
Orange County Supervisor of Elections Glen Gilzean says his office has set up a new tracking system to help you through the process.
“We have implemented a new program called Ballot Tracks,” Gilzean said. “Ballot tracks is like Amazon. It allows you to track your ballot in real time. So once we mail it out to you, you will receive an alert once you have it, email it back to us.”
There are several different ways that you can make sure you are registered to vote.
You can do it online, you can mail in your form, or you can go in person to your supervisor of elections office.
Voter registration deadline in Florida is Oct. 7.