Throughout this election season we have heard predictions about the Latino vote. Some people have predicted that this year the Latino vote will make a big difference others are saying that it is overhyped and Latinos will not go to the polls in historic numbers like they did in 2008.

So far this Election there seems to be enthusiasm for voting in the Latino community not just today but also counting early voting. Early voting amongst Latinos is up in key states like Nevada, Colorado and Florida and it is also up in Arizona an important fact showing that all of the recent anti immigrant rhetoric hasn’t gone unnoticed in the community but has instead encouraged people to vote like never before. 

Organizations across the country have been laying down the ground work registering Latinos to vote, calling them and providing social media tools encouraging them to vote all of this work seems to paying off. Just visit any social media website like facebook and twitter and you are bound to bump into pictures of Latinos proudly displaying their “I voted” sticker. News sites like Univision and NBC Latino are dedicating entire pages to photos that people send in and the interaction is high. It isn’t just pictures of young Latinos voting today either they are sharing photos of their parents or grandparents performing their civic duty many of them for the first time. We won’t know until later tonight what the impact of the Latino vote has been this time around but early on it seems that Latinos are voting in large numbers today and anti-Latino, anti-immigrant candidates may be in trouble.