Voter Capacity

Ms. Deni L. Taveras, MS, MPA-UPR
Dominican American Roundtable

Funded by: 1199 SEIU – New York’s Health Care Union

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This study estimates the potential electoral voter capacity of Dominicans US citizens in the United States, at a congressional district level, and identifies potential statistical relations between Dominican US citizens and actual voters.

It should serve as a tool to increase the level of funding dedicated to educate, orient, and facilitate political participation and civic awareness among Dominicans residing in the United States.

Dominicans started to immigrate to the United States in significant numbers post-Trujillo Era after 1961, with an average of 23,000 immigrants per year in the 1980s and more than 40,000 per year in the 1990s.

Since the early 1970s, only 190,000 Dominicans have become naturalized citizens, but many of them have had children born in the US that are also citizens and are of voting age. The CUNY-Dominican Studies Institute estimates there are 345,914 US-born Dominicans

The first official 2000 Census report accounted for 765,000 Dominicans in the US *, where 53% live in New York City

The Urban Institute shows that the New York public school system has the lowest graduation rates in the country

Dominicans are the second largest Hispanic group in the New York City public school system, constituting 10.4% of all students

There are few existing vehicles to educate the Dominican community on how the American political process works, namely through the power of the vote, and the effect it has on their quality of life and public policy in general.

Among the new immigrant Latino groups studied, Dominicans have the highest rate of citizenship (57%). Moreover, 79 percent of the Dominican youth (under the age of 18) are US citizen. This underage cohort constitutes one-third of the entire Dominican population in the US.

As of November 2003 elections, there have been 25 elected officials of Dominican descent across the country. There is also an increasing number of Dominican-American appointed officials throughout various levels of government.

* Based on latter findings, the US Census re-analyzed their figures to find that there was a 25% misrepresentation.

Dominicans are still considered fairly new Americans, most of the known populations are typically assumed to be concentrated in the Northeast region of the US and Florida.

While this is still the case, things are changing and the Dominican population is spreading throughout the United States.

Dominicans reside in all 437 Congressional Districts, including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia

There are 98 Congressional Districts that list a population of 500 or more Dominicans

Areas of growing Dominican population are: New Hampshire, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan and Alaska

Rational thought would suggest that a large ethnic and/or racial population presence in a Congressional District would be highly correlated with the voter potential, since a large established population can imply higher levels of citizenship. The table below shows that this is not necessarily the case: Dominican Population vs Citizenship in the Top 25 Congressional Districts
District	Dominican Population	Position	Dominican Citizens	Position
NY-15	123,807	1	40,794	1
RI-2	14,371	2	4,086	13
NY-16	100,801	3	33,214	2
MA-6	8,805	4	2,127	23
MA-5	20,046	5	4,843	10
NY-5	26,322	6	8,673	6
NY-12	54,087	7	17,822	3
NY-17	22,247	8	7,330	8
NJ-8	28,006	9	8,497	7
NY-10	15,266	10	5,030	9
NY-6	13,389	11	4,412	12
NJ-13	35,818	12	10,867	4
NY-7	26,940	13	8,877	5
NJ-9	13,105	14	3,976	14
NY-18	10,768	15	3,548	15
RI-1	3,523	16	1,002	24
FL-17	10,461	17	4,557	11
NY-9	8,809	18	2,903	16
NY-11	7,812	19	2,574	19
NY-4	8,331	20	2,745	17
MA-9	3,492	21	844	25
MA-8	11,336	22	2,739	18
NY-2	7,196	23	2,371	21
NJ-10	7,992	24	2,425	20
NY-14	6,495	25	2,140	22

It is the role of Dominican-American leaders to ask the question: How much and how fast will Dominican-American population continue to grow?

The US Census data projection estimate, under the revised figures, an annual population growth rate of 0.07.

Based on immigration data from 1990 to 2000, Dominicans have been naturalized at rates ranging from 1% to 3% per year of the total US Dominican population.

Also, 30% of the Dominican population is under the age of 18, of which nearly 80% of them are citizens.

The table below shows the results of a conservative rate of 1.5% adult citizen population growth.

Estimated number of Adult Dominican-American Citizens by 2020

Year	Dominican Population	Adult Dominican Citizens
2004	1,298,020	499,738
2006	1,479,167	591,667
2008	1,685,595	699,522
2010	1,920,831	825,957
2012	2,188,896	974,059
2014	2,494,371	1,147,411
2016	2,842,478	1,350,177
2018	3,239.165	1,587,191
2020	3,691,212	1,864,062