On May 2008 a group of "bodegueros", cab drivers, and concerned citizens of Perth Amboy, NJ were able to bring enough first time voters (mostly Hispanics) to the poles to exercise their right to elect their Mayor. This non-political group of people, which included high school students, distributed flyers for the last 7 days before elections with instructions in both English and Spanish on how to use a voting machine to elect their favorite candidates. These flyers also included a phone number of a free transportation for those needing it to go to vote, and hot line phone number to ask questions about where and how to vote or to report any abnormalities observed in the poles. The main theme on every flyer was “Your vote is power” or “Tu voto es poder”. On Election Day, the Hispanic community in Perth Amboy went to the poles, and surprisingly for those “in power” they changed the expected outcome. This case is an evidence of what we, minorities, have discovered: on Election Day our vote is as powerful as the vote of those “in power”.
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