Dorchester- Bilingual Ballots

Bilingual ballot now a reality for Hub’s Viet, Chinese voters

By Lauren Dezenski

July 16, 2014

Ballots in Vietnamese and Chinese will be made permanently available in certain parts of Boston beginning with this fall’s primary and general elections, thanks in part to the work of Dorchester’s community activists and elected officials.

“This issue is personal to me, as I have many family members who naturalized, are limited English-proficient, and who need these ballots to fully participate in the democratic process. My family’s story is only just one of the thousands of similar stories that stem from the Vietnamese American community in Boston,” said Huong Phan, a Dorchester resident and steering committee member of the Dorchester Organizing and Training Initiative (DOT-I).

Over the last two years, DOT-I and other groups, including Viet-AID, the Vietnamese American Community of Massachusetts, and the Vietnamese American Civic Association, have mobilized to ensure that Vietnamese-English ballots become a reality for the more than 2,600 primarily Vietnamese-speaking eligible voters.

Under the new law, signed by Gov. Deval Patrick in Chinatown on Wednesday, Chinese and Vietnamese bilingual ballots must be provided in each polling place in Boston where more than five percent of the voting age in the precinct is made of members of the language minority and are limited-English proficient.

The law also requires transliteration of relevant Chinese characters to their phonetic equivalent in English for candidates’ names. Candidates will be given a copy of the proposed transliteration and will have seven days to review and change the transliteration.

“This bill means so much more to our democracy because now more voters can understand what they’re voting for,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said at the bill signing. That comprehension will be especially important this fall with the four ballot questions in front of voters, “especially the question on gas tax indexing,” he added. Walsh supported bilingual ballot legislation when he was a state representative.

Bilingual ballots were temporarily available in Boston elections from 2006 to 2008 and again from 2010 to 2013, but this legislation makes the accommodation permanent. The home rule bill had a broad base of support from Dorchester’s elected officials, including City Councillors Tito Jackson and Ayanna Pressley, state Sens. Sonia Chang-Diaz and Linda Dorcena Forry, and state Rep. Dan Hunt.

“This historic campaign brought together Boston’s Vietnamese and Chinese-American communities to fight for a right that belongs to all United States citizens and to ensure that these people have a loud and clear voice in their community and city,” said Phi Tran, DOT-I program coordinator and Dorchester resident. “Our communities are only going to continue be more active and this is just one step moving to that direction.”

How US cities fixed violations to Asian Americans' voting rights in 2020

Amy Yee

Tue 22 Dec 2020 08.00 EST

In 2007, Fiona Yu was looking forward to voting in Boston’s local elections for the first time – a year after she became a US citizen. Yu, now 60, had immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong where she grew up poor, and earned a high school diploma through night school in the US.

On election day, Yu went to her polling station in Allston, a neighbourhood in Boston. But a poll worker was confused about her new home address. As a recent immigrant, Yu’s English was limited and there was no Chinese interpreter. The poll worker did not let her vote, even though Yu had proper documentation of her new address. Nor did she give her a provisional ballot.

“If that happens to a first-time voter, I can see why they don’t want to vote,” said Yu, through an interpreter. “It was very discouraging.”

As many as 11.5 million US citizens have limited English speaking skills. To help them, section 203 of the Voting Rights Act requires translated voting materials in jurisdictions with at least 10,000 eligible voters with limited English, or more than 5% of residents, and other factors. In 2016, about 250 jurisdictions in 25 states were covered under section 203, ranging from Los Angeles to counties in Mississippi and Kansas. Section 208 of the act also allows limited English voters to bring into the voting booth someone to help them.

In 2005, a Department of Justice lawsuit against Boston, in tandem with community advocacy, sparked language assistance voting reform. But as demographics shifted and more Asian Americans moved beyond Boston, nearby cities lagged behind during this year’s primary, with watchdogs reporting voting rights violations. And during general elections in November, the rise in mail-in ballots also spotlighted confusion among limited English voters, said Angie Liou, executive director of non-profit, Asian Community Development Corporation.

Now cities like Malden, on the outskirts of Boston, are working to comply with voting rights laws for future elections.

‘You don’t see the kind of intimidation you did 10 years ago’

In 2005, poll monitors in Boston observed that Chinese Americans with limited English were coerced by election workers when they cast their votes, said Karen Chen, executive director of non-profit Chinese Progressive Association. Polling stations also lacked translated voting materials and bilingual Chinese interpreters.

That year, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the city of Boston, alleging voting rights violations and discrimination against people of Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese heritage. Boston’s administration said the justice department lacked proof of the allegations, but the city settled the lawsuit in September 2005.

“There have been drastic reforms since the complaint,” said Chen, including bilingual Chinese ballots, translated voting information and training for poll workers on maintaining neutrality.

Since then, Boston has “done a good job” of committing to bilingual poll workers and translated voting materials, said Lisette Le, executive director of VietAid, a non-profit focused on Boston’s Vietnamese community. The city has “trained poll workers to be more respectful of voters. You don’t see the kind of intimidation like you did 10 years ago,” Le added.

Although not required by federal law, candidate names in Boston elections are now transliterated into Chinese and Vietnamese on ballots. An advisory board comprised of community organizations like the Chinese Progressive Association also works with Boston’s elections department on issues affecting limited English voters.

These reforms happened even though Boston’s Asian American population is not quite large enough to qualify for language accommodations under federal law. And in 2014 Deval Patrick, the Massachusetts governor, signed a law that mandates bilingual Chinese and Vietnamese ballots in Boston. The move followed years of advocacy from CPA, Greater Boston Legal Services, the Chinatown Resident Association, Dorchester Organizing and Training Initiative and other community groups.