San Francisco (By John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle) June 28, 2005 - Despite efforts to bring more voters to the polls, the rapid growth of the Hispanic community isn't being matched at the ballot box, according to a report released Monday.

"The Hispanic community is still growing and growing fast, but the growth in population is much greater in size than its impact on the political process," said Roberto Suro of the Pew Hispanic Center, a co-author of the report that looked at Hispanic voting trends.

Blacks and whites are far more likely to vote than their Hispanic counterparts, said Richard Frey, a co-author of the study.

In the November 2004 election, Hispanics outnumbered blacks in the country by almost 5 million people, yet 7.3 million more blacks were eligible to vote, and 6.5 million more turned up at the polls.

While the country's Hispanic population grew by an estimated 5.7 million between 2000 and 2004, the number of eligible Hispanic voters increased during the same years by only 2.1 million. By contrast, the increase of 3.4 million in the white population during that time was paired with a 4 million jump in the number of eligible white voters.

Fry said nearly two-thirds of those new Hispanic residents were unable to vote because they were either younger than 18 or not U.S. citizens. That demographic conundrum can't be solved in a hurry.

"One out of every two whites voted in 2004, compared to one out of five Hispanics,'' he said. "That's a startling difference in representation.''

Still, Hispanics cast 6 percent of the votes in the 2004 election, up from 5.5 percent four years earlier.

"The argument really is over whether the glass is half empty or half full, '' said Harry Pachon, head of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California. "More than 7 million votes (in the 2004 election) is nothing to scoff at.''

The focus of those votes is also changing. Although the Pew study indicated that President Bush's share of the Hispanic vote in 2004 was closer to 40 percent than the 44 percent originally shown by national exit polls, that's still a dramatic boost for Republicans. The GOP as recently as 1996 could attract only 21 percent of Hispanic voters to its presidential candidates.

"There's been growing support for Bush across many segments of the Hispanic community,'' Suro said. "But it may reflect his personal charisma and doesn't necessarily show a long-term realignment" toward Republicans.

The study showed that much of Bush's backing came from Hispanic Protestants, many of whom are the same type of evangelical voters who supported the president across the country.

"That religious support caught a lot of people by surprise in 2004,'' Pachon said. "In states like New Mexico, Hispanic evangelicals really got the word out.''

Bush's ability to attract Hispanics is likely to boost Republican efforts to woo those voters away from Democrats. But community leaders say the only real route to political power is by registering more Hispanic voters.

Increasing those number is going to take a combined effort that includes gaining citizenship for more Hispanic residents, increasing registration and intensified voter education efforts to get people to the polls, said Michael Bustamante, a spokesman for the Southwest Voter Registration Project.

"Registration is critically important because it translates into clout in the political process,'' said Bustamante, a onetime spokesman for former California Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.

"The clout will come farther down the line,'' Suro said. "It really is a baby bomb. Those babies will become voters two or three election cycles from now.''