With 9 million people of voting age – up 1 million from 2000 – the Asian-American community should logically be a force to reckon with in the upcoming presidential election.

The fastest growing community after Hispanics, however, has no real clout with either the Democratic or Republican camp.

“And that is really sad,” says S. B. Woo, former lieutenant governor of Delaware and founder of an initiative named ’80-20’. “It is high time the Asians are united as a single voting bloc and start influencing the political process; this is important for our growth.”

Woo’s organization aims to influence the political process through elections, and is built on a simple idea. If 80 percent of Asian votes are given to one party, it significantly increases that party’s prospects of winning. And in America, a community that can influence election results is one that parties vie for.

On the other hand, if the community is divided equally between both camps, the votes do not make a decisive impact. “To politicians, paying attention to a small constituent group that votes roughly 50-50 is like entering into a small business deal with a negligible margin of profit,” Woo argues. “On the other hand, chasing an immigrant group capable of voting 80-20 is like chasing a small business deal with a huge profit margin of around 60 percent.”

Asian Americans as a community, Woo says, are too fragmented along national and ethnic lines to make an impact on the political scene; coming together in the 80-20 formula is the way to change that, and the driving idea behind his initiative.

The initiative is yet to decide which candidate it wants to back. “The anti-Bush sentiment is strong in Asian communities,” Woo says. “Many among the second generation of Asian Americans are against his policies.”

However, that alone need not dictate the choice of candidate to support, Woo says; the trick is to be pragmatic. “We had sent a questionnaire to the presidential candidates of both parties, even before the primaries. Most candidates, including John Kerry, answered them to our satisfaction. But we have not had any response yet from the Bush-Cheney camp.”

Woo said he has asked Karl Rove, Bush’s political advisor, for a response. “If President Bush acts substantively for the benefit of the Asian communities before the election, we will go for Bush,” Woo, a professor of physics at the University of Delaware, said.

The organization has been getting its members together, all 1.1 million of them so far, one-third of whom have agreed to support a candidate endorsed by it at a convention next month.

In the 2000 election, 80-20 endorsed Democratic candidate Al Gore, who got around 66 percent of the Asian votes, where Bush got 32 percent and Ralph Nader, representing the Green Party, got 2 percent.

He says, however, that the perception that Asians generally back Democrats is not correct; in 1992, available polls indicate that the community largely backed Republicans, though in 1996 it switched back to the Democrats, during President Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign.

A major factor in favor of the community, Woo argues, is that its people are densely concentrated in a few states. Hawaii, which has four electoral votes, is 63.1 percent Asian. California with 54 votes has 11.7 percent or 3.78 million Asian voters. And in New York, with 33 electoral votes, Asian votes represent 5.3 percent.

The positive aspect, Woo says, is in these states the community can impact on the results. The negative is that these states are traditional Democratic strongholds that don’t rank as battleground states, thus the community is largely taken for granted and ignored by both parties.

Of the battleground states, Oregon, Nevada and Washington have the largest concentrations of Asians; these are being targeted by both parties since they can potentially influence the results, Woo says.

However, lack of communication between Asian groups has gotten in the way of unity, he believes. “In this land, we should be more united; after all, the problems are the same for all of us.”

Efforts are underway to forge this unity. “We are interacting with the National Federation of Indian American Associations for this,” Woo said.

The target is to set up coordinating committees at local levels for participating in political events hosted by the group.

“Currently, when say the Chinese organize a fund-raiser, only Chinese will attend, and that should change,” Woo argues.

Woo was Delaware’s Lt Governor from 1985 to 1989; he resigned to run for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, but failed. Now, he is an Independent.

Of the 80-20 membership, currently between 5 and 10 percent are Indian Americans. FIA leader Rajen Anand, and Director Human Rights Asia Adeel Shah are members of the steering committee.

Critics say the organization should concentrate on local rather than national politics. Woo disagrees. “You play the hand you are dealt. To have one minority ignored by the political establishment is not healthy.”

Woo argues that only demonstrable clout at the election booth can make parties take the community seriously.