The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (MIRC), a Portland-based immigrant advocacy nonprofit organization, is looking to target recently naturalized “New Mainers” with voter registration and turnout efforts.
In a Monday email, MIRC Executive Director Mufalo Chitam shared a flyer that contained information on key voter registration and absentee ballot request deadlines, as well as demographic data on the number of recently naturalized U.S. citizens in Maine.
“MIRC is committed to supporting Maine’s immigrant communities to vote and make their voices heard!” the email reads.
The data on Maine’s recently naturalized population shared in the email comes from “Rock the Naturalized Vote 2024,” a joint project by the University of Southern California’s (USC) Equity Research Institute and the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA).
Last week, the project published data touting the importance of recently naturalized voting age immigrant populations in key swing states, such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.
According to data from the USC Equity Research Institute, there are a total of 8,423 immigrants living Maine that have been naturalized since 2015 — representing about 0.8 percent of the state’s citizen voting age population.
Chitam wrote in the email that MIRC hopes the data “will be useful to activists, agencies, and civic and business leaders across the state of Maine working on focused civic engagement efforts with our new Mainers.”
Also announced in the email was an opportunity to sign up as a canvasser in Gorham, in partnership with the League of Women Voters of Maine, the Immigrant Welcome Center and the affordable housing developer Avesta Housing.
[RELATED: Mills, Bellows Cozy with Progressive Group ‘Studying’ Noncitizen Voting in Maine…]
The “Neighbor to Neighbor” canvassing is a project of the League of Women Voters of Maine, which the nonprofit says aims to provide voting information to “communities with low voter participation, low-income areas, and areas with a high proportion of immigrants.”
In an article published last week in the progressive Maine Morning Star, League of Women Voters of Maine’s civic engagement director Evan Murray said volunteers are going door-to-door and handing out information voting booklets to noncitizen immigrants.
The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition hosted a townhall event in Portland last month centered around the 2024 election, featuring Maine State Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D-South Portland), Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, EqualityMaine Executive Director Gia Drew and Maine ACLU policy counsel Michael Kebede.
During the event, Rep. Dhalac, a Somali-American immigrant, claimed that immigrants “lives are at stake” in the 2024 election as part of a rant against rhetoric used by former President Donald Trump in his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.
This is great news. Be sure they understand that if they don’t vote republican it won’t be long before this place turns into the shithole they just came from, but I think they already know that so keep up the good work MIRC you dumb bastards.
Lmao !! I moved here 25 years ago from Massachusetts and have been told I’ll NEVER be considered a “Mainer”. I guess I should’ve crossed the US border ILLEGALLY for Maine people to accept me ? They have no problem accepting my tax dollars however…….