Jabir Ali has never voted before, so when the 21-year-old saw an opportunity to fill out a voter registration form outside the Maine Muslim Community Center Friday, he stepped up.

“I said why not take advantage of this opportunity?” Ali said.

In a matter of minutes, he had completed the postcard-sized form and returned it to organizers from the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center and the Maine Muslim Community Center, who planned to take it to Portland City Hall.

The groups held a voter registration drive Friday to mark National Muslim Voter Registration Day and encourage Muslims in Portland to get out and vote. Similar events were held at the Lewiston & Auburn Islamic Center and Kennedy Park in Lewiston.

Two other community groups – Community Organizing Alliance and Generational Noor – also worked on the event, and the groups got support from the national organization My Muslim Vote, which was holding voter drives around the United States Friday.

“In our community, we want to increase the number of voters,” said Amin Warsame, whose father is the director of the mosque at the Muslim Community Center in Portland and who was running the event there Friday.

“There’s a perception of, ‘I have to only register when I’m interested in a certain candidate or they share my values.’ This is to improve the overall voting exercise and make sure we’re helping our community be more involved,” Warsame said.

Neither the city of Portland nor the state tracks demographic information on voters such as race, gender or religion. Only U.S. citizens are allowed to register and vote.

But advocates for immigrants and new Mainers – many of whom are Muslim – say there are some unique reasons why fewer of them might register to vote.

“I think it’s just some people don’t understand how the voting system works here,” said Firdaws Hakizimana, a community navigator for the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center.

“It is very different than in Africa or other countries. … If nobody goes into the community and says, ‘We’ll help you guys,’ nobody goes and does it except young people who are like, ‘This is our civic duty as American citizens.’ ”

“Part of it is a lack of understanding,” said Eisha Khan, a board member at the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center. “When we’re looking at new immigrants and new Mainers who just became citizens, there’s oftentimes not enough information for them to know how to vote.”

And while more candidates of diverse backgrounds are starting to hold office in Maine, Khan said a lack of diversity among candidates is another reason why some immigrants and Muslims don’t vote. And the process of registering or going to vote can be intimidating.

“If you look different and maybe you don’t speak the language, it might be difficult and deter people from participating,” she said.

That’s why Khan said she and other organizers planned Friday’s events at places people are already comfortable with. “We hope it’s an encouraging factor,” she said.

Around 1:15 p.m. Friday, throngs of people poured out of the community center after saying prayers for the day.

Halima Ali stopped at the table that Warsame had set up with staff from the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center with a friend and filled out a voter registration card.

“It makes sense to vote, and I just turned 18,” said Ali, who is not related to Jabir Ali.

“It’s nice to get more people involved,” she said of the event.

The group collected just a handful of registrations, but Warsame said it was still a success.

Two people he talked to Friday said they needed more time to think before registering, but he said they seemed to misunderstand the process and thought they needed to select candidates to vote for on Friday.

“I had to explain that to them and said, ‘You can register while also taking time to think about who you want to vote for,’ ” he said. He said the two men ended up registering.

The Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center has plans to do further outreach in immigrant neighborhoods this fall to help people register to vote.

“Maine is a purple state,” Hakizimana said. “So everybody’s vote matters. People who aren’t going to vote, their voices need to be heard.”

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