Yesterday the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund sent out the following letter, urging people to contact Congress for the renewal of particularly section 5 & 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1964. I oppose this because the federal government should have no business in this. My hard earned tax dollars should not be spent for this. I am a naturalized citizen myself. You are required to be sufficiently proficient in English to become a citizen. Then why do you need materials, particularly voter registration application and ballot, in another language other than English? See my April 12th entry.


May 1, 2006

The Honorable Arlen Specter
Committee on the Judiciary
United States Senate
711 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Chairman Specter:

We are writing to urge you to restore and renew the Voting Rights Act, in particular, the provisions for language assistance (Section 203) and enforcement (Section 5). Next year these provisions will expire unless Congress reauthorizes them. Our groups promote the political participation of Asian American voters.

Section 203 has given Asian Americans a real voice in the political process. Translated voter registration forms have helped more Asian Americans register to vote. Multilingual ballots have allowed voters to cast their vote independently. Election notices in Asian language media and direct communication with community groups have increased voter turnout. Section 203 ensures that almost 700,000 Asian Americans across the nation have access to the vote.

Section 203 requires language access to the vote. Under the current test for coverage, or "trigger," Section 203 covers jurisdictions that have 5% or more than 10,000 voting age citizens who speak the same language, are limited English proficient, and, as a group, have a higher illiteracy rate than the national illiteracy rate. Section 203 now requires language assistance in Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, and Vietnamese in 16 counties in 7 states.

In many places, however, the Asian American population is growing but still too small to meet Section 203's current test for coverage. Congress should lower the numeric trigger to 5,000 so that more Americans can exercise their right to vote.

Lowering the trigger to 5,000 would add language assistance in Khmer (Cambodian), Thai, and Asian Indian languages. This increases the Asian languages covered from 5 to 8. The number of jurisdictions would increase from 16 to 21. Counties in two new states, Virginia and Maryland , would be covered under this change.

Lowering the trigger to 5,000 will also directly benefit Latinos. Under the current trigger, 217 jurisdictions are covered for Spanish language assistance. Lowering the trigger to 5,000 adds 29 new Spanish jurisdictions, for a total of 246 jurisdictions covered.

Additionally, Section 203 coverage should be determined more frequently. Coverage is determined only once every ten years, following the decennial census. Yet population changes can be much more rapid. Testing for Section 203 coverage should occur every 5 years. This would be consistent with the Census Bureau's new initiative to provide more frequent data through the American Community Survey (ACS). Through these recommendations, we hope you will support expanding Section 203 to ensure more limited English proficient Americans can fully enjoy the right to vote.

It is important to note that despite the successes of Section 203, there have also been shortcomings in compliance. For example, voting materials have been mistranslated, interpreters spoke the wrong language or dialect, interpreter shortages led to voters being turned away because no one could assist them, and poll workers did not post translated signs. The U.S. Department of Justice has brought lawsuits against counties in California , Texas , and Massachusetts to ensure compliance. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund recently brought a similar lawsuit against New York City . Vigorous enforcement of Section 203 is still needed.

Finally, in addition to Section 203, we also urge you to support strengthening the enforcement provision (Section 5) of the Voting Rights Act by addressing recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. Section 5 ensures that cities and states with a history of voting discrimination against African American, Latino, Native American, Asian American, and language minority voters, will be deterred from implementing voting changes that will weaken the ability of minority voters to participate in the political process. We hope you will support restoring Section 5's retrogression analysis that was significantly curtailed by the U.S. Supreme Court in its Bossier II decision.

We hope that you will support the reauthorization and expansion of Sections 203 and 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act, and will also urge your colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to join you in defending the right to vote.

Sincerely,