Yakima - We were just ten percent off from the number of voters the state hoped would turn out. But when you break down those numbers even more, there's one group that still lags behind. The Latino Community continues to make great strides in Yakima, both in business and politics. But there still aren't enough latino voters getting their ballots in, and their message out.

Lupe Camacho is a Bilingual Program Coordinator with Yakima County's Auditors Office, " We have a good number of Latino registered voters."

More than 18,000 of them in, fact. WIth 48,000 Latinos living in Yakima County, that means almost 38% of the community had a ballot in their hand this election. But that doesn't mean they were all turned in.

Only 3,904 ballots were returned. That's a voter turnout rate of just 21%. Compare that to English speaking only voters and there's a big jump, to 51%.

" I don't know if it's fall out because of the economy. I don't know if it's people who voted in the presidential election and they only vote once every four years," said Corky Mattingly, Yakima County Auditor.

But it's those voters who might have made a difference for Ben Soria and Sonia Rodriguez in the race for City Council. Sonia is still trailing challenger Dave Ettl in votes. And Bill Lover had no problem defeating Soria.

Camacho said, " As in the rest of the community, the Latino community doesn't vote only or strictly Latino."

They vote for what they believe in and the candidates who best represent them. The problem is, they're not hearing the politician's message.

" Unfortunately I think that a lot of information doesn't reach our community. That's what I heard, is that we need more information in spanish, on spanish tv etc. to make an informed vote," said Camacho.

I tried contacting Soria and Rodriguez to find out how they addressed the Latino community with their campaign efforts. Neither of them returned my calls. But these candidates and others have just two years to come up with a better plan, if they want to get more of the Latino vote and representation in city and county government. And there are a lot of votes out there.