The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr.

Chairman

House Judiciary Committee

2138 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairman Sensenbrenner:

As the Judiciary Committee considers the reauthorization of the Voting
Rights Act (VRA), we would like to express our reservations about
renewing the multilingual ballot provisions in Sections 203 & 4(f)(4).
As you know, these provisions were not part of the original VRA.

The United States has an unrivaled history of welcoming and successfully
assimilating new immigrants from every corner of the world. We have been
enriched and strengthened by that process. For generations immigrants
have understood that learning English is essential to being full-fledged
participants in pursuing the American dream. But we believe these ballot
provisions encourage the linguistic division of our nation and
contradict the "Melting Pot" ideal that has made us the most successful
multi-ethnic nation on earth. They are a serious affront to generations
of immigrants past and present that have made great sacrifices to learn
English in order to become naturalized citizens.

This increasingly burdensome mandate on state and local governments to
provide multilingual voting materials also serves to undermine the
election process. It contradicts the requirement that immigrants need to
demonstrate the ability to read and understand English in order to
become naturalized citizens. The existence of multilingual ballots also
increases the risk of election errors and fraud. To cite one example, in
2000 six voting sites in Flushing, New York printed ballots in Chinese
with the names of the political parties reversed. Several thousand
voters cast their votes using these erroneous ballots (Village Voice,
Nov. 14, 2000). In addition, the possibility that non-citizens may use
this type of ballot to participate in our elections threatens the
integrity of our democracy.

Furthermore, not only are multilingual ballots an unfunded mandate, but
they are a waste of taxpayer funds. Almost 300 counties in 30 states are
required to have such materials available costing taxpayers millions of
dollars. But two GAO reports found evidence that in many cases these
materials are hardly used. For example, in 1996 Yuba County, California
was required to spend \$30,000 for election materials in Spanish. But
according to its registrar of voters there had only been one request for
Spanish language materials there in 16 years (September-October 1996,
Policy-Review, \"English is Broken Here\"). In the 2004 election,
officials in Los Angeles County, California were required to provide
more than 2,200 interpreters and spent more than \$2.1 million to
provide translations and ballots in seven different languages (Los
Angeles Times, \"Need for bilingual poll workers never ends, Nov. 1,
2005.\").

Finally, we want to draw your attention to the fact that federal law
protects the right of all citizens to bring an interpreter into the
voting booth with them if they have difficulty understanding a ballot
written in English. All citizens have the right to cast an informed
ballot, and this is the right approach for dealing with the voters who
have difficulty understanding election materials in English.
Multilingual ballots, on the other hand, divide our country, increase
the risk of voter error and fraud, and burden local taxpayers.

For these reasons we oppose the reauthorization of Sections 203 and
4(f)(4) of the VRA. Thank you for you attention to this matter, and we
look forward to working with you on this issue.

Sincerely,