On Election Day in two weeks 4,000 newly registered immigrant voters will participate in the Massachusetts polls.  These immigrants became naturalized citizens between late last spring up until last Wednesday, which was the last day to register in that state. These immigrants are a part of the seventh largest legal immigrant population in the country.  In the 2008 election, 89% of the registered immigrant voters showed on Election Day to vote, which is a significant amount of the ever-growing immigrant population in MA.  Twelve percent of voters in MA are now immigrants and this number is continuing to rise with more immigrants becoming naturalized.  Immigrant voters have consistently voted for candidates from all parties but have recently started leaning towards Democrats because of Republican’s unreceptive immigration policies.

In this years election, MA is a state heavily expected to vote Democratic according to a Yahoo poll. While immigrant voters in MA will vote along with the majority of the state, the immigrant vote across the nation is important for both former Governor Mitt Romney and President Obama.  Because of the wide gap between Romney and Obama’s immigration policies, immigrants have highly opinionated views on both policies.  Obama’s more open immigration policy has received a great amount of support from immigrants, documented and undocumented. Immigrants have also been a large part of opposition against conservative immigration laws such as in Arizona.  Because Romney has openly backed the Arizona immigration legislation, he is missing out immigrant voters because they feel offended by these laws.  In 2008 Obama received a large amount of immigrants votes and that helped propel him to victory. Will there be a similar result in this election? Comment in this section who you think immigrants should vote for.