The Voting Rights Act (VRA), as well as state legislation, have gaps that prevent linguistic access to various communities to know their right to vote, such as in Latino populations.
This is revealed in a report titled “Language Access and Voting Rights: An Overview of Federal, State, and Local Policies,” which highlights success stories in several states, but also the problems that may affect the right to vote.
“The report also identifies gaps in national, state and local election laws that leave thousands of voters behind,” said Dēmos, a nonprofit public policy organization, which authored the report.
Angelo Ancheta, Senior Research and Policy Advisor at Dēmos, and author of the report, points out that there are barriers to voting related to language, which can be a strategy against voters.
“From the literacy tests of the Jim Crow era to the English-only voting materials imposed by states in the modern era, language barriers have a long history of leaving voters, particularly voters of color, without a adequate access to the ballots,” Ancheta lamented.
The analysis reviews current laws and language access, although it is not necessarily a problem of the law, but of those responsible for local and state policies, who must take action and expand access to voting through better language assistance .
Population diversity
The report highlights the diversity in the United States, which is reflected in the hundreds of languages and dialects spoken in the country.
The Census Bureau’s recent American Community Survey, in 2019, about three in four Americans spoke only English at home.
However, the report indicates that 67.8 million Americans spoke a language other than English at home, a nearly triple increase from the 1980 figure.
“Among the largest groups, Spanish speakers numbered approximately 41.8 million in 2019, Chinese speakers numbered nearly 3.5 million, French speakers (including Creole dialects) numbered nearly 2.1 million, Tagalog (Filipino) speakers numbered nearly 1.8 million. million, Vietnamese speakers numbered almost 1.6 million and Arabic speakers numbered almost 1.3 million,” it is stated.
Although much of the growth of these linguistic groups was due to migration to the United States, speakers of Native American languages also experienced growth in recent decades without migratory flows.
“Language access is an issue of racial equity,” said Phi Nguyen, Director of Democracy at Dēmos. “As they currently stand, federal language access laws often fail to protect voters and leave out thousands of voters of color due to their level of language proficiency.”
The lack of action has left thousands of limited English proficient voters across the country with “little or no assistance.”
“The technical and legal reasons for this are that these voters are not included in the VRA’s ‘linguistic minority’ definition or because their population numbers, although large and growing, do not satisfy the VRA’s mathematical formulas for triggering coverage. ”says the report.
Nguyen highlights, however, that there are states where language barriers are faced with public policies.
“As we have already seen in many states and localities across the country, enacting policies to better address the diverse linguistic needs of American voters can address inequities in ballot access and ensure our democracy works for our communities.” , he noted.
Among the experts’ recommendations are:
– The creation of electoral materials in languages other than those required by federal law.
– Lowering thresholds for language assistance offered below federal triggers to expand the number of voters receiving assistance.
– The use of clear compliance mechanisms that are based on both sufficiently funded government policies and strong community participation.
Access to language is essential for electoral processes, even in campaigns, which has led civil organizations, such as Voto Latino, to translate material necessary for voters to make a decision, such as the translation of Project 2025, among other initiatives.
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