ProEnglish has post about bilingual voting, with a link to check to see if your county requires bilingual ballots. These ballots are required by Federal civil rights law. Brenda Walker did an item on it a while back called English Ballots In Colorado? California Already Has Chinese, Korean, And Armenian.
Last week, the Census Bureau released its list of covered jurisdictions that will be required to provide bilingual ballots for the upcoming 2012 elections. This list includes 248 counties in 25 states. The states of Florida, California, and Texas will be required to foot the burdensome bill to print foreign-language ballots for the entire state because they surpass the threshold of 5 percent of voting age citizens, or 10,000 such citizens (whichever is less), who are deemed limited-English proficient (LEP).
Is your county on the list? Check now.
The Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 was originally enacted to prohibit state and local governments from denying or abridging the right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," a right guaranteed by the 15th Amendment. But in 1975, Congress greatly expanded the VRA’s original intent by inserting special protections for "language minorities” –that is, American Indians, Asian Americans, Alaskan Natives, and citizens of Spanish Heritage. Although the bilingual ballot provisions were originally intended to be temporary remedies, Congress renewed them in 1982, 1992, and again in 2006 for another 25 years."
