Massachusetts’ Asian American community continues to grow rapidly and accordingly Asian American electoral participation increases in importance. Voting is a vehicle to expand opportunities and to enhance their role in the selection of public officials and influencing public policies. This participation, however, does not come easily for some groups and especially for those with a large immigrant component such as the Asian American populations. To be eligible to vote, adult residents must be United States citizens by birth or naturalization, but that is not enough — citizens must also be registered to vote.

This report provides detailed estimates of voter registration by Asian Americans in Massachusetts. Specifically it includes analysis by the Institute for Asian American Studies (IAAS) of recent data from the eleven cities and towns in Massachusetts with the largest voting age Asian American populations. The sizes of these populations range from 4,468 in Lynn to 48,017 in Boston. Data from this report will at times be compared to data from a similar IAAS study that was released in 2004.