A recent report on Univision’s principal national evening newscast leaves little doubt that the network's high-profile efforts to boost Latino voter registration and turnout are solely aimed to benefit Hillary Clinton.
On National Voter Registration Day, Univision correspondent Pedro Ultreras reported on the efforts by the organization “Mi Famila Vota” (“My Family Votes”) in the battleground state of Arizona to boost voter registration and voter turnout.
The entirely unchallenged anti-Trump tenor of the reporting on the GOTV could not have been clearer.
EDUARDO SÁINZ, DIRECTOR OF “MY FAMILY VOTES”: We are seeing a lot that momentum among people showing interest in ensuring that the candidate Donald Trump does not get to the presidency because of all the insults he’s made to our community.
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: So far this year, volunteers at “Mi Familia Vota” have registered 50,000 people. They say the goal is to reach 75,000 new voters by October 10, the day voter registration closes in the state of Arizona.
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: It’s because of the state of Arizona, epicenter of anti-immigrant laws and policies at a national level, many Latinos fear that things will get worse if Donald Trump reaches the White House.
The camera then turned to a legal resident of the United States who said she had no previous interest in becoming a citizen... until Donald Trump. It was then that she sought U.S citizenship and registered to vote.
Ultreras' report completely omitted any reference to considerable parallel efforts by the GOP and the Trump campaign to get out the vote, instead solely focusing on the efforts of “Mi Familia Vota” to get out the anti-Trump vote.
If you’re still skeptical, just check out Mi Familia Vota's Board of Directors, composed of two top SEIU leaders and a Google “education evangelist”, or you can look at the organization’s decidedly leftist platform. The organization has voter registration operations in Texas, California, and in three other battleground states: Nevada, Colorado, and Florida.
To put the icing on the cake, so to speak, at the conclusion of Ultreras' report anchor Jorge Ramos promptly proceeded to highlight Univision’s own effort to boost voter registration on the network's online platform.
Below is the transcript of the cited report, broadcast on the September 27 edition of Noticiero Univision:
UNIVISION
NOTICIERO UNIVISION
9/27/16
6:47:48 PM - 6:50:27 PM EST | 2 MIN 38 SEC
JORGE RAMOS, ANCHOR, UNIVISION: It’s National Voter Registration Day, and it’s expected that thousands of Hispanics will register to vote in the November 8 elections. As a matter of fact, the Spanish phrase “register to vote” marked a record 100,000 searches in Google last night during the presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Almost 13 million Hispanic U.S citizens that still haven’t done it can still do it. 2.5 million of them live in Arizona. Pedro Ultreras tell us how voters are recruited there.
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: In this room, dozens of volunteers prepare every day to go out into the streets to register voters in Phoenix, Arizona. They’re Latino youth that want to make a difference in their community for the next presidential elections.
JAZMÍN ZAVALA, “MY FAMILY VOTES” VOLUNTEER: Some of them say, “Oh yes, I’ll register right away”, and then there are others that are more like “No, I don’t want to register right now.”
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: They belong to “My Family Votes”, one of many organizations in Arizona that have gone literally into the streets to register voters, mainly Latinos.
EDUARDO SÁINZ, DIRECTOR OF “MI FAMILIA VOTA”: We are seeing a lot that momentum among people that they’re interested in ensuring that the candidate Donald Trump does not get to the presidency because of all the insults he’s made to our community.
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: So far this year, volunteers at “Mi Familia Vota” have registered 50,000 people. They say the goal is to reach 75,000 new voters by October 10, the day voter registration closes in the state of Arizona.
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: It’s because of the state of Arizona, the epicenter of anti-immigrant laws and policies at a national level, many Latinos fear that things will get worse if Donald Trump reaches the White House.
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: Dalila has been a legal resident of the country for 20 years, before she didn’t have an interest in becoming a U.S citizen or voting before until she heard Trump. Last May she finally obtained her citizenship and she immediately registered to vote.
DALILA RUBIO, NEW AMERICAN CITIZEN: I had never felt the need before to become a citizen until today. Until I heard him [Donald Trump] speak and I heard all the silly stuff he was saying.
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: You’ve never been interested in voting before?
ÁLEX PEÑA, NEW VOTER: No. It never really got my attention.
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: 24-year-old Álex Peña registered to vote for the first time with the volunteers from “My Family Votes”, motivated by Donald Trump’s rhetoric and Hillary Clinton’s controversies. He says nothing is going to deter him from going out to vote next November, and that if he can do it even with his disability, there are no excuses for others to do the same. In Phoenix, Arizona, Pedro Ultreras, Univision.
JORGE RAMOS, ANCHOR, UNIVISION: Well, to know more you can visit Univision’s webpage www.univision.com/vota.
