As the Presidential election approaches, the Latino vote has become a hot topic of conversation.

A recent study by the William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI), a policy analysis organization, indicates that the drop in registered Latino voters in 2010 “may diminish the size of Latino voter turnout in November 2012 by more than a million,” according to WCVI President Antonio Gonzalez.

Ahead of that curve — and along with a coalition of several Hispanic organizations working to register Latino voters ahead of November — Voto Latino, an organization dedicated to empowering U.S. Latino youth to organize around the vote, held its first annual conference this weekend in Los Angeles.

Over 300 youth leaders and activists from Washington, D.C., Arizona, Florida, and California, among others, gathered at the University of Southern California (USC) for a two-day conference “on media, leadership and activism.”

“We are thrilled that we are having this power summit,” said Sindy M. Benavides, Vice President of Field Operations and Political Affairs at Voto Latino, to The Huffington Post. “Our goal is to make sure that the students who are coming are getting the tools that they need when it comes to organizing folks to register to vote and then turning out to vote, and making sure that in November, they are at the polls.”

Read the full story at The Huffington Post