My Turn: Arizona's electorate is full of new faces, so why don't they vote?

There’s never been a more unpredictable election year, or one where the stakes are so high. Arizona is looking more and more like it will play a pivotal role in deciding the direction of our country. Voters will have a critical chance to choose between two starkly different Americas.

For the first time in our nation’s history the majority of voters deciding America’s future will be unmarried women, people of color and young voters, called the New American Majority. These people make up the majority of eligible voters, but that’s only if they’re registered to vote and come out to the polls.

Goal: Register 75,000 voters in 2016

As the new Arizona deputy director of Mi Familia Vota in Arizona, I know how important having access to voting can be, and how it changes communities for the better. Mi Familia Vota has a legacy of empowering Arizona voters and giving them a voice.

One Arizona, a non-partisan coalition created in 2010 to combat attacks on voters and the Latino Community, is leading the voter-registration effort in Arizona. Mi Familia Vota has been part of this coalition since it began. We have a historic goal of registering 75,000 voters in 2016, and together with national partners we will register over 200,000 people. Since 2010, One Arizona partners have registered over 110,000 new voters.

We’re also signing up every new eligible voter on the Permanent Early Voting List, so they easily get their ballot early and in the mail for every election. Our efforts have added 105,000 Latinos to the Permanent Early Voting List. There are now 300,000 Latinos on the list, and half of the growth since 2010 has been due to One Arizona’s work.

Eligible, but too few are registered

Arizona is full of the people who will decide our future. Unmarried women, Latinos, African-Americans and Millennials make up a strong majority — 60 percent — of the eligible voters in our state, but 43 percent of them are not registered to vote. The percentage of unregistered young voters is even higher: Fifty-three percent of Millennial Arizonans aren’t registered to vote. The Voter Protection Center and other like-minded groups are trying to close that gap.

That’s why the Voter Participation Center is mailing 474,000 voter-registration applications into Arizona. The Voter Participation Center is dedicated to increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in our democracy.

By mailing voter-registration applications to prospective voters, the center enables eligible individuals to fill in, sign the applications and mail them straight to their local election registrars’ offices in pre-addressed envelopes to be certified by government officials. The Voter Participation Center is also providing prospective voters with the online address for the secretary of state’s website and phone numbers to their county supervisor of elections.

Another idea for registering voters is automatic voter registration. This system would use current information from secure databases to register and update the registration status of eligible voters. It would lower taxpayer costs and reduce the types of human errors we saw during the March 22 Presidential Preference Election. With common-sense reforms like automatic voter registration we can reduce errors that could prevent eligible voters from exercising their fundamental rights.

And in a year when so much is on the line, it’s imperative that Arizona allows as many people as possible to register and vote.

Eduardo Sainz is the new Arizona deputy director of Mi Familia Vota. Email him at eduardos@mifamiliavota.net; follow on Twitter, @MiFamiliaVotaAZ.