2020 election shows AAPI voters are active but complex

By Christine Mui and Shira Laucharoen

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters turned out in record numbers on a national level for the 2020 presidential election, according to data from Washington D.C. consulting firm Catalist with non-profit Asian and Pacific Islander Vote (APIA). During a press conference held by APIA, speakers stated that AAPI voters turned out early in battleground states at a rate of 21% more than the entire AAPI turnout of those states in 2016. That represents an overall 290% increase from 2016, ranging from 350% for ages 18-29 and 252% for 65 and older. Nationally, the rise in AAPI voter turnout from 2016 was 240%.

Although turnout from Asian Americans in Boston was at a high this year, representatives from the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) said that Chinatown was relatively quiet on Election Day. Sophie Mark-Ng, an administrative staff member at CPA, saw a long line outside the Wang YMCA polling site at 7 a.m., but for the rest of the day, only a few people seemed to be trickling in. Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said that this is most likely because many cast their votes by mail, in advance of November 3. He added that Chinatown has a substantial population of elderly people, who may have had difficulty going to the polls in person.

“This election is not like any other that we’ve had in this country or locally, where for in many places, the indications are that the majority of votes were cast either in advance of Election Day or by absentee ballot,” said Watanabe. “In a place like Chinatown, where the Asian American population tends to be older, it’s a wise thing that they had the option of voting by absentee ballot. And I think it may have helped contribute to an increased turnout.”

The City of Boston Election Department’s data showed that as of midnight on election day, the voter turnout percentage for the wards and precincts that include Chinatown was 47.5% turnout for ward 3, precinct 8 and 46.8% for ward 5, precinct 1. Comparatively, the city’s total voter turnout percentage at that time was 39.43%. Barbara Delaney, civic engagement coordinator at the Boston Election Department, explained that the election department does not collect data on voters’ ethnic backgrounds, and these numbers may have some overlap with other neighborhoods.

The Pew Research Center maintains that Asian Americans are the fastest growing group of eligible voters out of racial or ethnic groups in the United States electorate. While this population remains a powerful bloc, it is a complex one, as members are economically diverse and predominantly not registered under a particular party in Massachusetts.

According to Karen Chen, CPA executive director, the Asian American voting population is difficult to define in terms of party affiliation. While a majority voted for Joe Biden during the past election, Asian Americans frequently do not register for a particular party, choosing to be unenrolled. This may be because of unfamiliarity with the system or because they do not want to commit to one party or another, said Chen. She noted that they had seen increased efforts from the Republican Party to increase Asian American membership, while similar efforts were not observed from the Democratic Party.

That tendency is not only specific to recent immigrants but holds true for people who have been in the country for a long time. Chen reported difficulties while helping a couple hundred people apply for voting by mail, mostly residents concentrated in Chinatown, Quincy, and Malden. “Even the application process was quite difficult,” she said. “With voter registration, some people had issues — your name has to be exactly like your driver’s license or Mass ID.” Such a requirement may create additional barriers for those who use their Chinese name on some forms of identification and an English one on others.

These barriers open opportunities for voter suppression. Even with translated ballots, the candidate names themselves may not be transliterated or represented in non-alphabetic characters for languages like Chinese and Arabic. In these cases, voters have to memorize the alphabetical spelling of their preferred candidates beforehand. “We had situations where for many years, the reason why we got bilingual ballots was that at the polling place, poll workers would tell people who to vote for. People don’t have the ability to vote independently when they don’t have a fully bilingual ballot,” Chen said. “Voter suppression is related to accessibility.”

Furthermore, APIA communities exhibit substantial socioeconomic disparities as the racial group with the largest wealth gap, which may affect the political issues that speak to them. These topical differences are reflected in geographical divisions. “If you look at Asian Americans who live in the suburban areas, how they look at racism or inequality issues is different. The need is different too,” said Chen. “People who live in the city would fight for access to services. Whereas I think suburban area folks would be like, well, I don’t need access. I want to be treated as American.”

Working-class APIA voters, in particular, are a historically under-targeted group for public opinion and exit polling. “It’s always disappointing to see AAPI voters labeled ‘other,’” said Beth Huang, executive director at Massachusetts Voter Table.“Without this data, it’s difficult to gauge the ‘big picture’ public opinion of AAPIs. Our partner organizations in the Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network were some of the only, if not the only, groups that contacted working-class AAPI voters in 2020.” She emphasized that “incentivizing civic engagement means empowering community leaders to reach out to less-likely voters in the languages that the voters speak and gives these voters a reason to cast their ballot.”

City Councilor Michelle Wu agreed that increased voter turnout and more Asian American representation in government are interrelated. She clarified, “I want to emphasize though that it’s not just that people vote based on their identity or their race or affiliation. My hope is that those candidates who are running for office are also being intentional and spending energy and resources in connecting the communities that they come from and communities that they want to represent in government.”