This is a modified version of the original story by CalMatters reporter Sameea Kamal for use in classrooms.
The 2020 Census confirms California’s status as one of the nation’s most diverse states — second behind only Hawaii, despite a likely undercount of Latino and Black voters. About 40 percent of Californians speak a language other than English at home — more than 200 languages and dialects — and one in five have limited English knowledge.
That, combined with California’s tradition of expanding voting rights, is why some advocates sounded the alarm over Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s decision to reduce the number of languages translated in some voting precincts from 27 to 10 for the 2022 election. She later reversed that decision, allowing translation into all 27 languages.
Before the decision was reversed, voting advocacy groups expressed concern at what they called “the massive rollback of language assistance” and urged her to use her authority to uphold the expanded options.
Their letter — sent by ACLU California Action, Common Cause California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice California and the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans — cited a Brennan Center report that in 2021, at least 19 states enacted laws that made it more difficult for Americans to vote, and that bills have been introduced in four more states this year.
“The reduction of covered languages similarly creates new obstacles for limited-English proficient voters,” the letter stated. “With so much at stake, California cannot backslide. We must continue to lead and take bold steps to protect voting rights and remove barriers to the ballot box for all eligible voters, including voters who are members of language minority groups.”
Over the years, California has made voting more accessible. It dropped its ID requirement and allowed same-day voter registration and preregistration as early as age 16. The state also expanded early voting and vote-by-mail. For the 2020 election and 2021 recall election, California joined three other states that responded to the pandemic by mailing a ballot to every voter. Despite COVID, the November 2020 election set records for voters registered and total votes cast.
Last year, the Legislature passed and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to permanently require mail ballots be sent to every voter.
How are language requirements decided?
In 28 California counties, the federal Voting Rights Act requires translations for the most common languages for non-English speakers, including Spanish, Filipino, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Vietnamese.
The state determines whether to add more languages — including Khmer, Russian and Farsi — and whether to require language assistance in more voting precincts.
On Jan. 1 of each year with an election for governor, the Secretary of State determines which voting precincts have enough “single language minority” voters who need assistance to vote. In precincts where 3% or more of the voting-age population falls into that category, counties must provide translations for ballots and voting materials in those languages and make a good-faith effort to recruit poll workers who speak those languages.
Weber said her initial ruling to reduce the number of languages was prompted by incomplete 2020 Census data. Before she reversed it, some counties including Santa Clara and Fresno said they would continue offering the languages they did in the 2021 recall election. Other counties, however, said that they could not secure funding from their boards of supervisors without a mandate from the secretary of state.
Since 2018, the number of potential languages for voter information translations has grown in California. Six were added that year: Arabic, Armenian, Hmong, Persian, Punjabi, and Syriac.
And after Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California Foundation won a lawsuit against then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla, another 14 languages were added in 2019: Bengali, Burmese, Gujurati, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Laotian, Mien, Mongolian, Nepali, Tamil, Telegu, Thai and Urdu.
The translations are meant to ensure that residents with limited English skills — 6.8 million, making up almost 20% of the state’s population — can vote without language barriers. In some places, voter participation is lower among non-whites.
“California has often led on language assistance for voters, and we don’t want to see a problem coming out of a data issue getting in the way of voters getting the language assistance they’re accustomed to and that they need to be able to vote,” said Julia Marks, staff attorney and program manager with the voting rights project at Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Jeanine Erikat, a policy associate with Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, a research and advocacy group for refugees in San Diego County, said the Secretary of State’s decisions are especially important to guarantee language assistance to the people her organization serves — such as Middle Eastern and North African voters, who are designated as White in the census, or East African residents.
“It’s really an exciting moment for communities who’ve been here for five-plus years and are acclimating and engaging civically in different ways,” she said. “And now they’re having to rely on someone who can translate for them, and we know often that means relying on a child or a neighbor or a community member. And it’s just not the same as being able to vote for yourself and really ensure you’re getting all the correct information.”