BROWNSVILLE — Hoping to increase voter registration within the next three years, the Cameron County Department of Elections & Voter Registration has launched Project Grow for the Vote 2020.
The department announced Project Grow for the Vote 2020 on Tuesday at the Cameron County Elections Commission meeting.
“It’s a focused effort by our office to present ourselves to the community by working with advocacy groups and working with existing structure to make sure that people that want to register have easy access to the voter registration application,” Elections Administrator Remi Garza said.
According to Garza, there are about 195,700 registered voters in Cameron County. The elections office hopes to increase voter registration to about 220,000 by 2020.
“Some people are not engaged in the political process, and they feel like that’s the only reason why they should fill out the application,” Garza said. “I think other people are apprehensive about providing information to governmental entities because they feel like it’s going to be used in a manner they’re not comfortable with or agree with, even though that isn’t the situation.”
Some initiatives the project will entail to increase voter registration include having representatives out in the community, utilizing social media more effectively and other advertising techniques, such as billboards and newspaper advertisements.
