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first available data of Dominican registered voters and votes
cast can be found in Latino Immigrants and Electoral Participation,
a 1996 report by the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy.45 The
authors, Falcon and Sanchez, found that a significant number of
Dominicans were registered to vote and did indeed turnout to vote
in New York City.“In 1993, [Dominicans] made up 11% of total
Latino registered voters and 2% of registered voters…in
New York City. In 1992 and 1993 Dominican votes accounted for
13.3% and 12.1% of all votes…cast by Latinos [across the
city]. 16 Latino Political Participation in New York City by The
Hispanic Federation is the latest report that alludes to a strong
correlation between the population of Dominicans and registered
voters; however, it never clearly specifies how many Dominicans
are registered and how many turned out to vote. The latter report
announced that the Latino registered voters grew by 46 percent
from 450,000 to more than 657,000, and Washington Heights and
Inwood (a Dominican majority minority assembly district) experienced
the largest gain in Latino registration of any neighborhood in
the city. The other neighborhoods that were cited with a notable
increase, such as University Heights, Bronx and Bushwick, Brooklyn,
were also neighborhoods with a rapidly growing Dominican population.However,
neither of the cited reports can be used to extrapolate voter
registration information for the remainder of the country or the
State of New York for that matter. Moreover, assembly district
level data cannot be directly correlated with congressional districts.
Thus, more research and financial resources would be needed to
gain the level of accuracy desired in this assessment. Currently,
the William C. Velazquez Institute (WCVI), in conjunction with
the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP), believes
it has a viable strategy that may be used to estimate registered
voters, but it has not yet been published.Additionally, review
of the preliminary results of this strategy show that it fails
to isolate ethnic groups and, |
at most, the regression results
can only estimate the percentageof Latino support a candidate running
for election can receive in a given precinct.In order to measure
votes cast, WCVI has the resources to conduct exit polls and determine
the Latino ethnic breakdown; however, they tend to focus on states
where Dominicans are not concentrated, like California and Texas,
as explained above Redistricting, Minority Representation, and Congress
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that voting block neighborhoods
be redistricted every ten years with the census, giving preference
to racial and ethnic concentrations, 17 often termed as majority-minority
districts.50 It was due to this Act that certain electoral districts
at a city- and state-level were formed in 1991. One of these was
City Council District 10 (Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble
Hill) formed to recognize and give representation to the Dominican
community. This soon led to the subsequent election of the first
Dominican-American elected official in New York, former City Councilman
Guillermo Linares.51 Since 1990 the number of US Dominican elected
officials has blossomed to 25 elected officials as of the November
2003 election results. While the desire for minority representation
is constantly debated in these “new” districts, little
has been written about the effects caused by minority representation
once the goal is achieved.52 The most recent redistricting effort
occurred from 2000 to 2002 and is recognized as the 108th Congressional
Districts. Due to the Act, a comparative study of the same congressional
district in different decades is not possible. Thus, it is imperative
for Dominican-American organizations and scholars to begin an assessment
of how political representatives are responding to the needs of
the Dominican community and to study how they have responded over
time. In the interim, rearranging the data in terms of Metropolitan
Statistical Areas could create the platform needed to compare the
impact of minority representation more easily. |
It is through
these initial steps that political officials are held accountable
to their campaign promises to support issues of interest to the
Dominican national agenda, such as affordable health care insurance,
access to better educational opportunities, and economic empowerment.
Although a US Dominican has never been elected to US Congress
it is the belief of prominent Dominican-American leaders that
one could and should be elected soon. Thus, this study helps provide
a focus to isolate the congressional districts where the likely
candidates may come from. Moreover, this report also provides
the groundwork for the Dominican community to better understand
the dynamics of redistricting and to prepare itself for the next
redistricting process in 2010. 18
Summary
This section covers the current limitations in the
existing literature on Dominican political behaviors and voting
habits. While some data does exists in terms of case studies and
surveys, studies about Dominicans has been mainly intellectualized
and rationalized based on theoretical inference. This is a problem
since surveys and studies show that Latinos community behaviors
can vary with nationality. The current cadre of information available
suggests that Dominicans do tend to be more politically involved
reflective to their ability to gain local-level political representation
nationwide and even obtain a majority-minority City Council district
in New York. Yet, a closer study of the benefits of these districts
and the effectiveness of their elected officials is needed.
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