Yalla Vote – roughly translated as “Come on, vote” – is a national initiative of the nonprofit Arab American Institute (AAI), which is targeting the 12 states with the highest concentrations of Arab Americans. They include 10th-ranked Pennsylvania, with an estimated 182,000, and sixth-place New Jersey, with 258,000.

Because voter registration forms do not ask for religious affiliation, no one knows precisely how many Muslim Americans are registered voters. As for numbers of Arab Americans state to state, AAI’s estimates are higher than census figures. The institute contends that the government undercounts Arab Americans due to ambiguity in the census question on ancestry, as well as “distrust/misunderstanding of government surveys among recent immigrants.”

Yalla’s organizers say that they are promoting voting, not individual candidates, and that their mission is to use the power of the ballot box to put Arab Americans at the forefront of national conversations on such topics as surveillance, profiling, immigration, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

“With an estimated population of over 180,000, the Arab American community in Pennsylvania could be a swing constituency” on Election Day, said Yalla’s Pennsylvania field coordinator, Summar Elgogari of Reading, a Temple University senior majoring in secondary education and social studies.

In the last three weeks, Elgogari says, she has registered about 55 voters. On Sunday, she plans to bring Yalla’s drive to St. George Christian Orthodox Church in Upper Darby, where many worshippers are of Jordanian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian descent.

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