From a Nov. 4 joint press release by the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO)and New York-based LatinoJustice:
LatinoJustice PRLDEF and GALEO have sent a joint letter to election officials in Gwinnett and Hall counties requesting that they produce bilingual voting materials before the 2016 election.
Bilingual ballots are a necessary and important tool that provides citizens with limited English proficiency with the ability to understand sometimes complex ballot items. Under the Voting Rights Act, jurisdictions should provide voting rights assistance for those persons educated in American flag schools whose primary language is not English.
“The law primarily protects Puerto Rican voters as they are native born American citizens and should not lose their right to vote simply because of language barriers when moving to the mainland United States,” the letter states. “The lack of bilingual voting materials prevents Spanish speaking Puerto Ricans from fully participating in the Electoral process.”
Based on U.S. Census data, 27.5 percent of Hall County’s population is Hispanic and 26.2 percent of the county’s population speaks a language other than English at home. Twenty percent of Gwinnett County’s population is Hispanic.
“Bilingual ballots simply seek to have more people come to the polls and participate in the voting process,” said Martha Pardo, Associate Attorney, LatinoJustice PRLDEF. “We’d certainly like them to fix this on the local level, but we are prepared to go to federal court to get these counties to follow the law.”
“A lot of efforts have been done to ensure that the Latino electorate continues to participate in Georgia’s elections. Ensuring language access to Spanish speaking U.S. citizens who need the access is a step in the right direction and we look forward to working with both Hall and Gwinnett Counties on accomplishing this in time for the 2016 elections,” said Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director of GALEO.
From an October 27 letter to the Gwinnett County Board of Elections:
Without Spanish language voting materials Latino voters are not encouraged to participate in the electoral process at risk of being disenfranchised. Moreover, the lack of translated materials deprives Latino voters of casting a meaningful vote especially with regard to public referenda. By providing Spanish language materials, voters with limited English proficiency can understand and fully exercise their voting right.
The Voting Rights Act prohibits conditioning the right to vote due to a person’s inability to speak, read or understand English for those persons educated in American flag schools whose primary language is not English.
In order for Latinos to fully participate in the electoral process, we urge you to provide Spanish language materials including but not limited to: ballots, voter guides, bilingual poll workers and website information.
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