Seiu Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina And LULAC National Executive Director Brent Wilkes Encourage Youth Vote

The League of United Latin American Citizens Executive Director Brent Wilkes and SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina are pushing the youth vote in a major Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort.

Wilkes and Medina addressed youth at the University of Maryland speaking jointly on a panel encouraging youth to exercise their civic duty and stressing the importance of expressing their opinions at the ballot box.

“This is one of the most critical elections in history and young people are going to make the difference,” said SEIU’s Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina.

LULAC has operations in swing states as Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Missouri and Virginia.

LULAC has taken to the airwaves and has been an active force in this year’s presidential elections with the support of its sponsors Comcast, Telemundo and Azteca America to let voters know the issues and the candidates’ positions. LULAC has released the LULAC Challenge asking both of the presidential candidates the top 10 issues for Hispanics.

Senator Barack Obama took the challenge. LULAC made sure voters understood key differences through public events, mailings, voter registration drives, TV ads, informational DVDs, commercials, door-to-door, distribution of literature and registered voter cards.

“LULAC has an impressive GOTV movement in 45 states and our youth have been mobilizing in droves,” said Wilkes. “We have registered 50,000 voters and have mapped out events around the nation providing experts in the fields from now through the election. The Latino vote will be the deciding factor in who will be the next President of the United States.”

Some 50,000 Latinos reach the voting age of 18 every month, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Half of the nation’s 18 million Latinos are under the age of 40. Seven million American Latino voters are between the ages of 18 and 29. They constitute 18% of the youth vote.

While addressing the students of the University of Maryland, Wilkes and Medina fielded questions pertaining to early voting, electioneering laws, what to do if voters feel disenfranchised, and how students can get involved in the election process in addition to voting.

For more information on the 2008 election, please visit LULAC Voter 2008 and obtain a listing of events in your area at www.lulac.org.

To arrange an opportunity to talk to a LULAC member and cover their election efforts, please contact LULAC National at 202-833-6130.

The League of United Latin American Citizens advances the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, health and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide.

For more than 75 years, SEIU has been helping working families stand up for their rights, fighting for dignity and respect in the workplace.

With 1.9 million members, SEIU is the largest and fastest growing union in North America, the nation’s largest health care union, second largest public employee union, as well as the union that conducts the highly visible and successful Justice for Janitors campaign. SEIU is a national leader in fighting for secure and affordable health care for all, living wages, affirmative action, and the rights of all workers regardless of immigration status. “

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