Language Access and Our Democracy

By Steve Chu

Here we are—the 2020 presidential elections in the United States. Amidst the record turnout—already one hundred million votes cast to date, groups of voters may potentially see their basic rights in a democratic society eroded at best. At worst, their voting rights would be suppressed. More than eight million voters in the United States do not speak English well enough to vote.

During the midterm elections in 2018 in Harris County, Texas, volunteer Korean interpreters were compelled by the county’s election administrator to be more than 100 feet away from the Trini Mendenhall Community Center entrance because of electioneering rules. (This is the same Harris County in which a lawsuit was brought in recent days to try to invalidate 127,000 legally cast votes at tent sites set up for drive-thru voting. As of yesterday on November 2, a federal judge threw out the lawsuit. The same judge also ruled that according to Texas code, voting had to take place inside a “structure”. Campers, outdoor enthusiasts, politicians, lawyers, and linguists can spend the next four years debating whether a tent is a structure or not.)

In 2018, the volunteer Korean interpreters in Harris County were barred to be inside the polling station, effectively preventing them from offering their interpretation services to Korean-speaking voters. The lack of access for these Korean voters, many of whom senior citizens, amounts to disenfranchising the Korean community in Harris County, Texas.

And yet in Michigan in October 2020, a judge struck down a ban on openly carrying firearms at polling sites or within 100 feet of polling sites on Election Day. Somehow, interpreters are not allowed to be within 100 feet of polling sites, yet people openly carrying firearms are.

Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1975 requires that translated materials and bilingual poll workers be made available in jurisdictions in which LEP voters of a single language group are 5% of the voting population or 10,000, whichever is less.

In Pennsylvania, an estimated 110,000 LEP voters live in places where local election boards are not required under Section 203 to provide language access. That is an astounding figure considering the margin of victory in Pennsylvania in the 2016 presidential election was a mere 44,000 votes.

In Gwinnett County, Georgia, Spanish-speaking voters were entitled to receive translated election materials under Section 203. Yet during the primary election in 2020, election officials only sent out English ballots in spite of the legal requirement.

Language companies play a critical role in this landscape. Many language companies provide translation and interpretation services that enable access to healthcare, legal services, social services—and of course—election. Language companies offer Translation and interpretation solutions that provide the limited English proficiency (LEP) population with a bridge and a path to the American dream.

In New York, a similar story was playing out. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has expanded a program that puts more translators at polling stations across the city. But the New York City Board of Elections required that these translators maintain the 100-foot electioneering marker.

The New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) estimates that there are 1.6 million immigrants in New York, more than half of whom are citizens. And approximately 853,000 people in New York speak languages other than English.

Without access to language translation, many of these communities would see their voting rights suppressed. Language access thus is necessary to access to our political system. Without the linguistic fluency, these communities’ political voice is literally not heard. The absence of that political voice, in turn, means that the immigrant communities do not have the political fluency and the political language to effect in change.

Language access is the path to a strong democracy in which all of our voices are heard—literally. Language access—and the ability and freedom to provide it in the form, place, and time that best meets the needs of stakeholders and constituents—is an essential feature of a free society and a just market.

At the upcoming Glocalization Organization of Asia Pacific (GoAP) 2020 Annual Conference on December 9-10, 2020, we are looking to discuss the impact of the US Presidential Elections on the language industry globally. Check out GoAP’s website at goap-global.com

If you are interested in learning more about GoAP or participating in our upcoming conference, please contact Steve Chu. 

I am Steve Chu and I approve this message.

Steve Chu is president of Treehouse Strategy as well as founder and executive director of the Glocalization Organization of Asia Pacific (GoAP). He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow Treehouse on Twitter @treehouseg11N or Facebook. 

Also visit GoAP’s website at goap-global.com and join our LinkedIn group.

This article was originally written prior to the 2018 midterm elections and has been updated for the 2020 presidential elections.