DALLAS American Muslims have set up voter registration booths in mosques across the United States to encourage fellow Muslim voters to sign up for the November mid-term elections. "We have set up booths in 150 mosques across the country in the past two weeks," Mukit Hossain, a political consultant to the Muslim American Society which is championing the drive, told Reuters Saturday, September 30.
American Muslims have also established a website to enable Muslim voters to register online.
Hossain said about 10,000 were estimated to have been registered to date, expecting "tens of thousands" more to be signed up before the November mid-term elections.
There are over two million registered Muslim voters in the United States.
The November elections are crucial in deciding which of the Republicans or the Democrats would control Congress during President George W. Bush's final two years in office.
"We have looked and said do we have enough Muslims to impact this race," Hossain said.
"And secondly what are the issues, how important are they for the Muslim community and where do the candidates stand?"
Analysts expect Democrats to wrestle control of the House of Representatives and make significant gains in the Senate during the November 7 elections over public dissatisfaction with Bush's domestic policies and the Iraq war.
All 435 House seats, 34 of 100 Senate seats and 36 governorships are up for grasp in the November elections.
Crucial Votes
The US Muslim drive is also targeting areas where a few voters can determine the outcome of the November race.
"The Virginia Senate race is another one because you have 52,000 Muslim voters there and in a tight race they can make a difference," added Hossain, who is also president of the Muslim American Political Action Committee.
The Muslim move is believed to be echoing a tactic employed by evangelical Christians to support conservative Republican candidates.
But Hossain said American Muslims were not simply copying this strategy but felt compelled to take their political activism to the mosque in the wake of 9/11 attacks.
Politically motivated Christians have for the past three decades been using the pulpit as a platform to get voters to the polls to support conservative candidates.
A survey of Muslim voters last year showed the political issues that concerned them most were the perceived erosion of civil liberties since the 9/11 attacks, the hardening of immigration laws and US foreign policy in the Middle East, Hossain said.
The next priorities on their list are education and health care, which are the mainstream middle-class concerns.
Though there is no scientific count of Muslims in the US, the six to seven million is the most commonly cited figure.
Fears
Hossain also said Muslims in some areas fear that neo-conservative and right-wing candidates would beat moderate ones, counting on the anti-Muslim drive that gained momentum in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
In District 8 in Arizona, for instance, Muslims had concerns about the anti-immigration tone of Republican candidate Randy Graf, who is running to replace an outgoing moderate Republican in a closely watched House contest.
Muslims are also concerned about the record of Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia on civil liberties, Hossain maintained.
In August, a USA Today/Gallup poll showed that 39 percent of Americans said they feel prejudiced toward Muslims.
In its annual report on the status of US Muslims, CAIR said earlier this month that discrimination and hate crimes against Muslims in the United States have surged by almost 30 percent in 2005.