The Latin American Student Organization will host a discussion on minority voting issues at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

The presentation will take place in the Phipps Auditorium of the Physical Science Building.

The presentation is part of Latino Heritage Month, which runs Sept. 15 through Oct. 15.

Dana Barnard, the assistant director of student life and the adviser of LASO, helped organize the event.

She said the groups decided to host the event because, with it being an election year, the LASO executive board wanted to do something to inform fellow students about the presidential candidates.

“The event will specifically address issues that directly impact minority students that the candidates are talking about,” Barnard said.

Kevin Anderson, an assistant professor of political science, will lead the discussion.

Anderson said he was approached by LASO about two weeks before classes started in August.

“Generally when you work in political science, you realize that a lot of people are going to want to hear what you have to say during an election,” Anderson said. “It is kind of like the Super Bowl for political scientists.”

For the presentation, Anderson will focus on the some of the “big” issues of the election, as well as going into detail about how they specifically affect how minority groups may vote.

He will also talk about issues that may be specific to Latinos such as immigration and the DREAM Act, which stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors.

The act did not pass Congress but remains a debated topic in politics.

“In one sense, these issues are very similar to what many groups are concerned about: jobs, education and the economy,” Anderson said.

Anderson said he would also talk about the misconception that all minorities vote together the same way.

“We tend to talk about the minority vote such as the black vote as if all the people vote the same way, even though we know on the surface that this is not true,” Anderson said. “There is disagreement and tension between them on different issues, but at the end of the day, you can only pick candidate A or B, and few people are going to change their position because of one issue, but it does happen.”

Amy Wywialowski can be reached at 581-2812 or alwywialowski@eiu.edu.