Bilingual voting ballots ordered in 25 states

[The Northerner]

WASHINGTON — In the run-up to the 2012 elections, the federal government is ordering that 248 counties and other political jurisdictions provide bilingual ballots to Hispanics and other minorities who speak little or no English.

That number is down from a decade ago following the 2000 census, which covered 296 counties in 30 states. In all, more than 1 in 18 jurisdictions must now provide foreign-language assistance in pre-election publicity, voter registration, early voting and absentee applications as well as Election Day balloting.

The latest requirements, mandated under the Voting Rights Act, partly reflect second and third generations of racial and ethnic minorities who are now reporting higher levels of proficiency in English than their parents. Still, analysts cite a greater potential for resistance from localities that face tighter budgets, new laws requiring voter IDs at polls and increased anti-Immigration sentiment.

Effective this week, Hispanics who don't speak English will be entitled to Spanish-language election material in urban areas of political battleground states including Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Utah and Florida. For the first time, people from India will get election material in their native language, in voting precincts in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, due to their fast population growth.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ap-us-census-bilingualb,0,95841.story

[Lance_Boyle]

1. I may be alone here in my opinion that this is a bad thing.

Localities cannot afford this. It is an unfunded mandate.

It is beyond time to make Federal business an English-language-only affair. And yes, I know that most here who are butthurt about my opinion are only butthurt because the votes gained by unfairly asking localities to kowtow to non-English speakers tend Democratic. Go team go! :eyes:

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. So ensuring that US citizens who may not be fluent in English can exercise the franchise...

is "kowtowing to non-English speakers". Charming.

[Romulox]

4. Fluency in English should be a bare minimum requirement for naturalized citizenship.

In whose interest is an illiterate immigrant populace, I wonder? :hi:

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Some demonstrated competency (although not necessarily "fluency") IS a requirement

with a waiver for those over 55 years of age who've been resident in the US for 15 years or longer, or over 50 years of age and resident in the US for 20 years or longer. See here: http://usimmigration.visapro.com/Naturalization.asp

[Romulox]

6. "Fluency" has a specific meaning. nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Sure, the ability to converse in English, read a newspaper, and write a sentence would be "fluency"

but this also neglects the fact that there are in many places ethnic enclaves where people may be native-born US citizens yet speak very little English; see this report on non-English speakers in Hawaii for instance where they found that 11.8% of native-born (ie, US citizen) persons surveyed spoke another language at home and fully 20.4% reported speaking English "less than very well": http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/census/acs/Report/Data-Report-Non-English-Speaking-Profile-Hawaii.pdf

[Romulox]

8. "Naturalized" also has a specific meaning.

:shrug:

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. But the fact that there are native-born US citizens...

who may not be fluent in English and may require voting materials in another language makes your original point pretty irrelevant anyway.

[Romulox]

10. In Hindi? I think not. nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. The language is beside the point

Under the Voting Rights Act, a county is required to publish information in a second language if it meets one of the following criteria:

• If more than 5 percent of that county’s voting-age population belongs to a minority language group that has limited proficiency in English.

• If more than 10,000 voting-age citizens belong to a minority group with limited English proficiency and the percentage of that group possessing less than a 5th grade education is higher than the national average.

Read more: http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/napa-must-now-publish-elections-material-in-spanish/article_0b7dd448-f50f-11e0-ba69-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1abhwCisK

[Romulox]

13. Nonsense. You were just on about the native born "naturalized" population,

many of whom apparently speak Hindi. :silly:

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. No, I was talking about the native-born population in places like Hawaii

and also probably much of the Southwest and other places, who don't speak English fluently; you're the one who brought up Hindi (and you also seem to think that the Voting Rights Act is kind of meaningless).

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. Conflating Spanish with Pidgin is not valid

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. I'm not conflating anything; I'm providing an example of native US citizens...

with a lack of English proficiency. And actually the most common languages reported were Tagalog and other Asian languages, not Hawaiian pidgin. Percentage of Hawaiian speakers speaking English "very well"? 92%. Percentage speaking English "less than very well"? 7%. Which is only a fraction of the total for all languages, and that 7% is less than half of the native-born who speak English "less than very well". "Less than very well" for the native-born is 20.2%, which is 9 percentage points lower than the number who only speak English. Which you might know if you'd read the link.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

20. The study does not even acknowledge pidgin

Which is the dominant local patois. There are those who speak it only...how are they considered in the study? The base data coming from the census does not acknowledge it at all.

Had similar numbers come from a state without such a broadly used patois, I might give it more credence, but not from Hawaii.

[EFerrari]

3. So the Justice Department should just ignore the Voting Rights Act

because it offends xenophobes.

[Bill McBlueState]

11. eh, probably not

I bet lots of DUers agree with you, for some reason. Sometimes this place is barely distinguishable from a newspaper comment board.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

16. Oklahoma has outlawed them.

I want to see that fight.

[belcffub]

17. ok... so how many people who speak...

a particular language do you need to have before you print a ballot in the language... 1... 10... 100...

do we ask for the language preference on the voter registration card? If we do that information is now publicly available. If we don't ask do we just print one for the top 50 languages spoken... what do you do for the person who is not in the top 50...

or is it easier to just use one language?

hhmmmm

[yankeeswin]

18. The guidelines were printed above

if you care to read them. Of course it is easier to use one language, but sometimes having a free country isn't easy...