Federal Officials Monitor Voting
The Justice Department has sent monitors to polling places in Los Angeles this year to determine whether the city is violating the federal Voting Rights Act by not providing official ballots in languages other than English.
Los Angeles prints sample ballots in English as well as Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese. But at polling places, the official ballot is available only in English, and voters are asked to use their sample ballot as a guide to translate.
City Clerk Frank Martinez said he thought the city's procedures complied with the Voting Rights Act, which requires that any jurisdiction that has a substantial number of people who speak a language other than English provide all voting materials in that language.
But in other audits this year, the U.S. Justice Department concluded that three smaller cities in Los Angeles County violated the law by printing official ballots only in English; it reached agreements with the communities to provide official ballots in other languages in the future.
Though not commenting on the Los Angeles inquiry, Justice Department officials said the law was clear.
"Section 203 requires translation of all voting materials
Federal officials were sent to Los Angeles to monitor the March mayoral election and the May runoff, part of an investigation of municipalities that are required to offer voting materials in languages other than English. On election day in 2004, the department's Civil Rights Division quadrupled the number of elections it monitored -- to 87 in 25 states -- compared to the 2000 election.
Ventura County last year agreed to print its official ballots in English and Spanish after the Justice Department investigated its procedures. The county plans to have a single bilingual ballot by next year, said Gene Browning, the assistant registrar.
Riverside County uses a touch-screen voting system, which prompts voters on a video monitor to specify whether they prefer English or Spanish. Orange County uses a similar device, offering electronic ballot versions in Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese.
Los Angeles' population is 47% Latino and 10% Asian. In the mayoral runoff in May, 25% of voters were Latinos and 5% were Asian, according to a Los Angeles Times exit poll.
