Registration Efforts Are Paying Off in New Voters : Politics: Volunteers have to battle citizen anger and apathy, but they report a growing number of people who want to have their voices heard.

Fifty years of voting has made Elizabeth Runyan more political atheist than political believer.

“There’s just no point in it,” she tells registration volunteer Martin Hernandez outside a supermarket on Los Angeles’ Eastside.

But Hernandez, who wears a stick-on Su Voto Es Su Voz (Your Vote Is Your Voice) label over his heart, is persistent in his attempt to renew Runyan’s lapsed registration. “What about the Senate races?” he asks. “And the local. . . .”

Before he can finish, she cuts him off. “When you’ve lived 72 years, you know that’s just a bunch of bull,” she says.

The scene, though a disappointment for Hernandez, happens often in the trenches of politics, where hundreds of registration volunteers from diverse organizations fan out across the county each day to sign up voters before the Oct. 5 deadline.

But the workers’ burden of confronting citizen anger and apathy among the nearly one-third of Los Angeles County’s 5.5 million eligible voters who remain unregistered appears to be easing.

Registration workers this summer report that thousands of new voters are being attracted to the political process. The recent urban riots, hoopla surrounding the national political conventions and frustrations over officeholders perceived as bumbling have piqued the public’s interest.

“There is more interest this year than there has been in a long time,” said Sharon Delugach, executive director of Jobs With Peace, an organization opposed to Gov. Pete Wilson’s welfare reform initiative that is registering voters. “The uprisings and the condition that Los Angeles and the whole country is in have made people feel they can’t sit on the sidelines anymore.”

The nonprofit group has registered about 5,000 people over the last two weeks in South and East Los Angeles, including many older people who have never voted. “After (the rioting) was over, folks seemed to say maybe voting is the way to go,” said Herb Wesson, campaign manager for Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke’s supervisorial bid.

Dueling registration drives by Burke and her opponent, state Sen. Diane Watson, have netted 8,000 new registrants, representatives from the two campaigns said.

Summer registration efforts, the results of which will not be available from the county registrar until mid-October, span a range of interest groups:

* Korean-Americans, spurred by recent events, have started an intense registration push. “Since the riots there has been much more interest,” said Jerry Yu, executive director of the Korean American Coalition. Previously, Yu said, “Korean-Americans felt they had no voice in the political system and weren’t getting any assistance from politicians who represented their area.”

* The California Abortion Rights Action League South is in the midst of a “Ten Days to Help Save Women’s Lives” campaign, to be held on successive Sundays until Oct. 3.

* Stanley Erickson, chairman of the United Westside Democratic Campaign, said recent coverage of the Democratic Convention had stirred voter activity. “We’ve had between five and eight percent of people (who are registering at their table) switching from Republican to Democrat since the convention, so the reception has been very good,” Erickson said.

* The precinct director for the Pasadena-based Los Angeles County Republican Party said his organization will make its “biggest effort ever” to coincide with the GOP Convention beginning in Houston today.

Most of this effort is hinged upon targeting people known to be least likely to vote.

According to Mark DiCamillo, managing editor of the Field Poll in San Francisco, the largest group of non-voters tends to be young minority group members who do not read newspapers or magazines but watch television heavily.

“They are completely out of the political mainstream and are skeptical at best about how politics can affect their lives,” DiCamillo said.

But activists say a lack of easy access to registration materials is a hurdle for poor and minority voters. In Los Angeles County, ballots are printed only in English and Spanish, excluding many immigrants who speak other languages.

Except for materials handed out by volunteers, registration materials are available only in public facilities, such as post offices, government buildings and public libraries, or by contacting the registrar of voters. And because people are required to re-register each time they move, many voters allow their registration to lapse.

“It is too difficult for people to register,” said Elsa Casillas, a project coordinator for Latino Vote ‘92, a group that registers voters and provides citizenship information. “In other places (countries) it’s done automatically. The (U.S.) government has not simplified the process.”

While many organizations still rely on volunteers working at ironing boards and fold-out tables in shopping centers or on street corners, a few have adopted more sophisticated techniques.

Following a trend in political campaigns, Latino Vote ’92 has purchased copies of voter data from a private company in an effort to close the gap between the city’s 40% Latino population and its 11% Latino registration rate.

The service provides Latino Vote ’92 with a list of neighborhoods in Los Angeles County that have large numbers of potential Latino voters. In those areas, such as in Pico Rivera, Baldwin Park and El Monte, Latino Vote ’92 is focusing on shopping centers and door-to-door solicitation.

The most important part of recruiting new voters involves a more personal relationship than confronting someone at a mall, said Richard Martinez, director of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.

“Registering people at supermarkets is like a cattle call,” Martinez said. “But if you make follow-up visits to homes, you’re engaging them in the political process. Standing in front of a grocery store does not invite them to think.”

Those tactics have been successful. Since 1984, the number of Latinos who vote has increased 44% in Los Angeles County, Martinez said.

But for most volunteers, the shopping center remains the tried-and-true standard.

Even 12-year-old Mario Gonzales, six years too young to vote, has joined the effort. Mario watched grimly recently as person after person shook their heads “no” in response to his queries to register them at a shopping center on Los Angeles’ Eastside.

Finally, a man in a hat reading “100% Chicano” stopped to sign up.

Mario wiped the perspiration off his forehead, cracked a smile and announced his victory: “You score sometimes,” he said.