More than 300,000 Muslims have registered to vote since the 2012 presidential election, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) estimates.
CAIR has been declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding operation.
According to a CAIR analysis of voter information, there are currently some 824,000 registered Muslim voters. CAIR arrived at this figure by marching the voting records against a list of 43,538 traditionally Muslim names. In 2012, CAIR used the same methodology to estimate that there were around 500,000 Muslim voters.
“Knowing that more than 300,000 American Muslims have registered to vote since the last presidential election is a validation of the national and local Muslim community efforts to get out the vote,” CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert S. McCaw said in a statement.
Since the analysis relies on names, rather than reported religious affiliation, CAIR cautioned that its estimates might not be comprehensive as African-American, Latino, and other groups with high populations of Muslims or Muslim converts might not necessarily have Muslims names. Likewise, the group excluded names associated with other faiths — liked “Sarah,” ‘Adam” and “Omar” — from its list of traditionally Muslim names.
The group stressed that the Muslim community is facing “rhetorical attacks” and that Muslims must mobilize to assert their rights.
“As a community under the pressure of hostile political rhetoric calling for profiling of American Muslims, Muslim immigration bans and warrantless surveillance of mosques, we must utilize all the tools of positive civic engagement to preserve religious freedom and other constitutional rights,” McCaw added.
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