ARMENIAN AMERICANS SOUGHT AS NEW VOTERS; DRIVE PLANS TO GET CITIZENS ON ROLLS.

Byline: Lee Condon Staff Writer

Educator Alice Petrossian has only one question when she comes across a fellow Armenian who has just become a U.S. citizen.

``The first thing I say is, Have you registered to vote? It's somewhat of an Armenian guilt trip,'' said Petrossian, a top Glendale school official. ``I sincerely believe that if you are a good citizen, you have to vote.''

But most Armenian residents don't vote. The 100,000 Armenians living in the voting districts in Glendale, Burbank and surrounding communities make up nearly a third of the population, but only 5 percent are listed on the voters rolls. In typical elections only one in three of the registered Armenian voters actually show up at the polls.

But as the eastern San Fernando Valley region gears up for several hotly contested political races next year, campaign strategists and community activists alike are zeroing in on this untapped political force.

Petrossian is part of an aggressive effort by Armenian community leaders to boost Armenian voter registration by 25,000 people by November 2000.

Campaign consultants, ever on the hunt for new voters, are now targeting the often overlooked Armenian community, seeing them as potential swing voters in what are expected to be tight races.

``There is very substantial interest in this group,'' said Jim Hayes, president of Political Data Inc., a firm that helps politicians target voters.

Unpredictable voters

According to Hayes, everyone up for election in the area wants to know how many Armenians are registered, how many are Republicans or Democrats and, most importantly, how they are going to vote.

Hayes has spent much of the last decades tracking Armenian names and voting histories on registration lists. That involves painstakingly searching for Armenians, mostly searching for names which end with the letters ``ian'' and ``yan.''

He cautions that Armenians as voters are quite unpredictable and capable of confounding political strategists.

Hayes said while registration is increasing, historically few Armenians actually turn out to vote. While Republicans still outnumber Democrats 44 percent to 28 percent, more new voters have been registering with the Democratic Party than the GOP in recent years. While Armenian candidates enjoy intense loyalty, non-Armenian candidates cannot rely on folks to vote along party lines.

``There are a lot of people out there saying they can sell Armenians as a bloc of voters,'' Hayes said of political consultants. ``I don't think you can do that.''

Eric Hacopian, a political consultant who is coordinating the registration drive, said even though there are tens of thousands of unregistered Armenian American citizens here, it will be a great challenge to register 25,000 new voters.

``These things are never very sexy or pretty. You don't just mail stuff to people. It's just a lot of sweat,'' Hacopian said.

Language and cultural barriers and the tortured political history of the Armenian people sometimes makes voter registration a tough sell.

``They are thinking, `What list does this get me on?' '' Hacopian said. ``A lot of people come from countries where getting involved in politics could be downright dangerous.

A new era

Once dominated by Republicans, the Glendale-Burbank area is now fiercely competitive, with Democrats leading in voter registration by a slim 6 percent. Little attention was paid to Armenian voters in the Burbank-Glendale area until recently because it was assumed that most Armenian voters were Republican and that they would simply vote for the Republicans who always won here.

But in 1996, Democrats took the state Senate and the two Assembly seats here, and suddenly Democrats and Republicans alike were very interested in new voters who had moved in.

``Everyone thought (Armenians) would just elect Republicans. But this area is competitive now,'' Hayes said.

In 2000, the political clashes are expected to be intense and expensive.

In March, voters in the 21st state Senate district will head to the polls to choose a Democratic nominee for the post. The contenders are Assemblyman Scott Wildman, D-Glendale, and Assemblyman Jack Scott, D-Pasadena. Both are popular local politicians forced to face off against each other because of impending term limits on their current jobs.

Voters will also choose Democratic and Republican nominees for both the 43rd and 44th Assembly District seats.

In the 43rd district, two Armenians candidates are running - Republican lawyer Craig Missakian and Democratic lawyer Paul Krekorian.

The congressional race has received national attention because Democrats are targeting Rep. James Rogan, R-Pasadena, for defeat because of his role as one of the House prosecutors in the President Clinton's impeachment trial. His challenger is well-known state Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena.

Hayes said he was impressed by the effort put forth earlier this year by Hacopian and Glendale Councilman Rafi Manoukian.

In his first bid for the City Council, Manoukian led a registration drive that netted 3,000 new Armenian American voters. In an aggressive absentee ballot campaign, Manoukian inspired a turnout of nearly 50 percent among local Armenian voters - nearly double the turnout of registered voters overall.

Manoukian, a Democrat, is now the chairman of the new registration drive. The group hopes to host a telethon on Armenian-language cable television stations in January. It will be modeled after a similar telethon last year in which community leaders urged residents to call. Volunteers would then be dispatched to the caller's home to help them fill out registration forms.

Petrossian, the school administrator, said she has worked on voter registration drives in the community for years. A Republican, she joined the new effort after being assured that it will be nonpartisan and that voters will not be encouraged to join one party over another.

Petrossian said volunteers will need to be honest with potential voters, acknowledging that their mailboxes will be stuffed with mail from Rogan, Schiff, Wildman and Scott next year. They can also expect phone calls from get-out-the-vote volunteers.

Petrossian herself was weary of all the phone calls she received during Manoukian's aggressive campaign for City Council.

``Every time I saw him, I said, Rafi, get me off your roster,'' Petrossian said. ``It's just overdone.''

Petrossian said she thinks the goals are realistic. She noted that the peak year for new Armenian immigrants coming into the Glendale school district was 1994. Those students and their parents have now been here for five years and are now eligible in many cases to become citizens.

Like Manoukian, other Armenian candidates have enjoyed strong support from Armenian voters, the most high-profile example being former Gov. George Deukmejian. Many Armenians registered as Republicans in order to vote for Deukmejian in GOP primaries and gave generously to his campaign.

While Hacopian acknowledges the role Deukmejian played in inspiring Armenians to vote, he said those efforts focused mostly on wealthy Armenians who could also make financial contributions.

``It was more of an elite thing rather than a common person thing,'' Hacopian said. ``Deukmejian was not politically empowering for the masses of people. It was probably empowering for a small group of people. This is the first time it has ever been done where we are reaching out to everyone.''

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Photo: The group 25,000 in 2000 is organizing a voter registration drive aimed at Armenian Americans. Among those involved are, from left: Nigol Manoukian, Dr. Armine Hacopian, Aram Agdaian, Glendale City Councilman Rafi Manoukian and Eric Hacopian.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer