Advocates fight to ensure citizens not fluent in English have equal access to elections

LAS VEGAS (AP) — In the heart of Las Vegas’ Chinatown, on the second floor of a sprawling shopping plaza that serves as a hub for the city’s Asian community, residents gather for a celebration of the annual Dragon Boat Festival. Some stop in to grab shiny, red packages of premade zongzi, a rice dish wrapped in bamboo leaves often eaten during the Chinese holiday. Others talk with advocates who are on hand to educate people about the importance of elections. They grab flyers decorated with a colorful dragon boat and something else: a QR code taking them to information about how to vote – all translated into Chinese. Longtime community leader Vida Lin walks in and flashes her own “I Voted” sticker, having already cast her early ballot in the state primary.

Nine years ago, Lin founded the Asian Community Development Council, and since then, she has fought for the very information attendees are getting today: details about how to register to vote and cast a ballot on Election Day, translated into their primary language. For Lin, these resources help increase civic engagement among one of the fastest-growing demographic groups in the state and nation. That, she says, is the only way her community can gain power. “If you don’t come out to vote, you don’t get your voices heard, you’re not going to get these issues that we have taken care of,” Lin says. “It’ll be like what happened 30 years ago when I came here with no services, no help, nowhere to go.

We’ll be stuck there. ” Nevada, like the nation, is growing ever more diverse. These population shifts bring their own challenges to ensuring democracy is open and available to all American citizens, no matter what language they speak. This November, under a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, some 24 million citizens are entitled to assistance that will allow them to vote in their primary language. Section 203 of the act requires communities meeting certain population thresholds and other requirements to provide language assistance to groups that have “suffered a history of exclusion from the political process” – specifically Spanish-speaking, Asian and Indigenous populations.

“This is a way of compensating for past and ongoing discrimination that does occur in the electoral process,” says Angelo Ancheta, a California lawyer and expert on the federal language provisions. “We’re trying to figure out, not just in voting but in a larger sense, how we incorporate immigrants into the American population. And what do we do as a country for new immigrants, and immigrants who’ve been here for a long time, whose language skills are still not where they might need to be to participate fully in the process? ” But in an ever-changing America, some question whether the federal law is doing its job. Compliance varies from place to place.

Some officials argue it’s too expensive to provide such assistance, or they point to a lack of qualified translators. Others may be caught off guard if sudden shifts in demographics trigger the mandate. “I remember talking with a county clerk … and as soon as I mentioned my colleagues and I are looking at bilingual ballots, it was almost like he wanted to throw salt over his shoulder – like, ‘Don’t bring that up,’” says Matthew May, who researched Section 203 as part of his work at the Idaho Policy Institute at Boise State University. “He’s thinking about it from an administrative side.