Washington, DC, Apr. 19 (UPI) -- A study released Monday suggests Hispanic voters aren't swayed by traditional campaign outreach efforts, a finding that may have significant implications for how Sen. John Kerry and President Bush market themselves to the country's largest minority group.

Like several minority groups, Hispanics have long been associated with the Democratic Party. Latinos fall somewhere between white and African-American voters in terms of the percentage of the population that identifies itself as a Democrat, according to a 2002 study by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.

That same study also found that while Democratic identification among Hispanics is broad, it is also shallow and included opinions on several key issues that defy normal party platforms. The Pew Hispanic Center's survey released Monday further underscored this point, with findings that Latinos also are stratified according to whether they are foreign-born or native and whether they get their news through English-language or Spanish media.

The latest study, examining media habits among the United States' 35 million Hispanic inhabitants, said the Latino population can be divided into three segments -- those who get their news from English-language sources, those who get their news from Spanish-language media, and those who switch between the two.

Most significant for the president and his likely Democratic contender, the senator from Massachusetts, the majority of likely Hispanic voters who responded to the poll get their news entirely from English-language media. Forty percent get news from both languages, while 6 percent of likely voters get all their news in Spanish. Sixty-one percent of this group watches television network news shows only in English, while 28 percent watch news programs in both languages and 11 percent only in Spanish.

This means, the study reported, that the popular practice of airing political advertising on national Spanish-language news shows reaches, at best, 39 percent of the likely Hispanic voters, calling into question the efficacy of that practice in reaching this significant community.

The segment of respondents who said they used all English-language media outlets -- 31 percent of those polled -- were better educated and made more money. The vast majority -- nearly eight out of 10 -- was born in the United States and 44 percent made more than $50,000 a year. By comparison, 96 percent of those who only used Spanish-language media sources were foreign born and 65 percent made less than $30,000 a year.

The study's findings are based on a nationwide telephone survey of 1,316 Latinos conducted Feb. 11 to March 11. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Pew Hispanic Center Director Roberto Suro told United Press International he had not yet analyzed the survey's findings to extrapolate what they mean for likely Hispanic voting behavior in the 2004 presidential election.

"If I recall, for the most part the demographic characteristics you see in the general population hold for the Hispanics as well," Suro said, but added that the one "wrinkle" in the trend was that a lot of recently naturalized immigrants voted in the late '90s and in the 2000 election.

Gabriela Lemus, director of policy and legislation for the nonpartisan League of United Latin American Citizens, agreed that newly naturalized immigrants are more likely to vote, but pointed to other raw data that is perhaps more significant.

"Let's look at the numbers -- 8 million registered, 8 million eligible to register. Why aren't they registering?" she asked.

Thirty-five percent of the Hispanic population is between the ages of 18 and 25, an age bracket typically uninterested in both voting and policy issues, Lemus said. Also, a large proportion of the population has dropped out of school. "The less education you have, the less likely you are to vote, and that may trend with the media findings as well," she said. Finally, many Hispanics were embarrassed to vote because they had never done so and didn't know how.

The fact that Hispanics are the largest population minority group in the United States also is misleading once data is examined.

U.S. Census data show that 27.5 percent of voting-age Hispanics in the United States took part in the 2000 election, far below the averages for other ethnic groups.

One reason for this is that nearly four out of 10 of Latinos age 18 and above are not U.S. citizens, and thus cannot vote. Among whites this percentage is 2.2 percent, while 5.7 percent of voting-age blacks in the United States are not citizens.

Of the 202.6 million voting-age people living in the United States in 2000, 21.5 million were of Hispanic origin. Of those, 13 million were citizens, 7.5 million were registered, and 5.9 million actually voted.

This left Hispanics with the lowest percentage of registered voters actually casting a ballot in the 2000 presidential election, behind whites, blacks and Asians and Pacific islanders. Nationwide, 85.5 percent of registered voters participated in the 2000 election, while 78.6 percent of Hispanics did.

These statistics would point to candidates' need to pursue Hispanic voters on two tracks -- first, by addressing the policy issues important to them, but more importantly by getting them registered to vote.

Voter registration drives have become a major part of the 2004 election to deal with this exact problem. Nonprofit organizations, including one Lemus is working to get off the ground, are working feverishly to register voters. These organizations have to register voters for both sides, but by using demographic information they are able to handicap their effort by going after groups who historically have leaned to either side of the political divide.

Lemus added that it is important to respond to the policy questions Hispanics have, which are largely mainstream American issues: education, healthcare and the economy. Many Hispanics registering for the first time label themselves independents, Lemus said. "They really are curious, they want to be brought into it, they want someone to fight over them," which either candidate has yet to do.

The president, a former Texas governor who promised to work hard with Mexican President Vicente Fox to deal with the issue of illegal immigrants, made little headway on the issue beyond his campaign promises. This may come to haunt him in November, Lemus said.

On the other hand, Kerry has yet to define himself with Hispanic voters, Lemus said. "A lot of people are undecided. They're waiting to see from Kerry what he's going to do and what his plan is and what the strategy is," she said. The deciding factor, she later added, will be "what Kerry comes out with on education, healthcare and the economy."

"Bush is a known entity. Now they're going to have to figure out ... do you change your horse in mid-stream?"

Copyright 2004 United Press International