By: Ashmar Mandou

This past Saturday, Governor Pat Quinn, Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, and State Representative Eddie Acevedo, joined the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) to reveal the New Americans Democracy Project (NADP), a non-partisan citizen voter registration and mobilization campaign focused on creating more participation in the democratic process among the immigrant community. At Saturday’s gathering, held at Instituto del Progreso Latino, NADP with ICIRR worked with 22 fellows, along with staff members to reach a goal of registering 37,000 new immigrant voters and assist 4,000 immigrants to citizenship; staff members also thousands of immigrant voters to urge them to show up on Election Day.