Historically, naturalized citizens underperform the U.S.-born at translating eligibility into actual votes. Registration is one key: Once registered, immigrants’ voting rates are similar to native-born voting rates, and the longer someone has been a citizen the more likely he or she is to be registered and to vote. Naturalized citizens are nearly 9% of all citizens who are old enough to vote in the U.S. Research over the last few general election cycles shows that the gap in registration rates between recent and long-term naturalized citizens is closing. However, in a few key battleground states, the newly naturalized voters we counted could make a difference.

Source: Los Angeles Times September 23, 2016 19:17 UTC