Bilingual Voting Assistance: Assistance Provided and Costs
Published: 1997-05-09T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed aspects of the implementation of bilingual language provisons of the Voting Rights Act, focusing on: (1) the types of assistance jurisdictions provided for the 1996 general election; and (2) actual cost that covered jurisdictions incurred to provide bilingual voting assistance in 1996 and prior years, if available.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: GAO noted that: (1) of the 292 jurisdictions that responded to GAO's survey, 272 reported providing bilingual voting assistance for the 1996 general election; (2) of the 292 respondents, 213 said that they provided both written and oral bilingual voting assistance to their minority language voters, 45 said that they provided written assistance only, 14 said that they provided oral assistance only, and 20 said they did not provide any assistance; (3) with respect to the jurisdictions not providing any assistance, 5 said they tried, but were unable to identify individuals needing assistance, 13 said that no one needed assistance or that no one had ever sought assistance, and 2 believed that they had been exempted from providing assistance; (4) in addition, five jurisdictions and two states reported furnishing bilingual voting assistance to groups that the act did not require them to assist; (5) in addition to assistance provided by jurisdictions, states may also provide assistance, such as translation of state election propositions or translated sample ballots; (6) 12 of the 26 states that responded said that they furnished some bilingual voting assistance; (7) the 14 remaining states reported that they provided no bilingual voting assistance; (8) in addition, some states, such as California (CA) and New Jersey, have adopted their own laws requiring bilingual voting assistance; (9) as the act does not require covered jurisdictions and states to maintain data on the costs of providing bilingual, information provided by the surveyed jurisdictions and states on their costs was scant; (10) of the 272 jurisdictions that reported providing assistance in 1996, 208 were unable to provide information on their costs; (11) of the 64 jurisdictions that reported cost information, only 34 provided information on total costs and the remainder provided partial costs; (12) the 34 jurisdictions' reported costs varied greatly; (13) of the 12 states that provided assistance, only Hawaii and Florida reported their total costs for providing bilingual voting assistance in 1996; (14) Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, and Rhode Island (RI) reported partial cost data; (15) only 29 jurisdictions and 6 states provided some data on election year costs for 1992 to 1995; (15) moreover, the amounts jurisdictions reported spending on bilingual voting assistance in prior years varied widely; and (16) the amounts states reported also varied by year.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended (42 U.S.C. 1973 et seq.), was enacted to, among other things, protect the voting rights of U.S. citizens of certain ethnic groups whose command of the English language may be limited (minority language groups). The act’s “bilingual voting assistance requirements” apply to ethnic groups in 422 “covered jurisdictions”—most of which are counties—in 28 states. Critics of the bilingual provisions have charged that the implementation of these requirements has been costly and has been of questionable benefit in increasing voter turnout of the targeted ethnic groups.
This report responds to your request that we review two aspects of the implementation of bilingual language provisions of the act. You asked that we determine (1) the types of assistance jurisdictions provided for the 1996 general election; and (2) the actual cost that covered jurisdictions incurred to provide bilingual voting assistance in 1996, and in prior years, if available.
To determine the types of assistance jurisdictions provided and the related costs, we surveyed election officials representing each covered jurisdiction and each state that had covered jurisdictions. In all, we solicited responses from election officials in 28 states and 391 covered jurisdictions. See appendix I for a detailed discussion of our objectives, scope, and methodology. In total, 26 states and 292 covered jurisdictions responded to our questionnaires, a response rate of 93 percent and 75 percent, respectively. (See app. II).
The information contained in this report is limited to the data provided by the states and jurisdictions that responded to our survey. To the extent practical, we attempted to verify the completeness and accuracy of the responses. Where a response to a question was inconsistent with other answers elsewhere in the survey or where a respondent failed to answer a question, we contacted them to clarify or determine the response. On cost questions, we requested that respondents only provide actual costs for which they had supporting documentation, not cost estimates. In a number of cases jurisdictions provided us documentation supporting their costs; additional details are provided in appendix I (see page 34). Because the jurisdictions that reported costs were geographically dispersed, it was not practical to further verify the costs reported.
For both objectives, the survey was affected by variables which limit the responses’ generalizability. For example, the covered jurisdictions varied in (1) the number of polling locations where bilingual voting assistance was provided, (2) the size of the populations in need of assistance, and (3) the number of minority groups for whom assistance was required. Accordingly, comparisons across jurisdictions are not meaningful and the responses of states and covered jurisdictions cannot be projected or generalized to nonresponding jurisdictions.
On April 9, 1997, we requested comments from the Attorney General or her designee on a draft of this report. On April 18, 1997, the Chief of the Voting Section, Civil Rights Division, on behalf of the Attorney General, provided technical information, which we incorporated where appropriate. We did our work in Washington, D.C., from July 1996 through April 1997 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: In 1975, Congress amended the Voting Rights Act and extended its coverage to protect the voting rights of citizens of certain ethnic groups whose language is other than English. The act’s language minority provisions require states and covered jurisdictions—political subdivisions—that meet the act’s coverage criteria to conduct elections in the language of certain “minority language groups” in addition to English. The act defined these language minorities as persons of Spanish heritage, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Alaskan Natives.
Where the applicable minority groups have a commonly used written language, the act requires covered jurisdictions to provide written election materials in the languages of the groups. For American Indians and Alaskan Natives whose languages are unwritten, only oral assistance and publicity, e.g., public information spots on the radio, are required. All covered jurisdictions must provide oral assistance when needed in the minority language. Both written and oral assistance must be available throughout the election process from registration to election day activities and are required for all federal, state, and local elections.
According to the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section, the objective of the act’s bilingual assistance provisions, in the Attorney General’s view, is to enable members of applicable language minority groups to participate effectively in the electoral process. Further, according to the Section, jurisdictions should take all reasonable steps to achieve the goal, but they are not required to provide bilingual assistance that would not further that goal. A jurisdiction need not, for example, provide bilingual assistance to all of its eligible voters if it effectively targets its bilingual program to those in actual need of bilingual assistance.
The implementation of the act by states and jurisdictions could vary depending on the extent that the states provide assistance. For example, where states provide ballot translations for national and state issues and offices, the covered jurisdictions only have to translate the portions of ballot issues and offices that pertain to them. Where states provide no assistance, the responsibility for assistance falls entirely to the jurisdictions.
The act, as amended, contains two sections—4(f)(4) and 203(c)—which provide specific criteria for determining which states and jurisdictions are to be covered by the bilingual voting provisions. The act designates the Attorney General or the Director of the Census to make these determinations (see app. III). In total, 422 jurisdictions in 28 states were covered during 1996. These included three states—Alaska (Alaskan Natives), Arizona (Spanish heritage), and Texas (Spanish heritage)—which were covered statewide (i.e., the act’s provisions apply to all political subdivisions within the state). Figure 1 illustrates the number of covered jurisdictions in each state.
Some covered jurisdictions have more than one ethnic group for which they are required to provide minority language voting assistance. Figure 2 shows the number of minority language groups by ethnicity within the 422 covered jurisdictions.
The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is to oversee the covered states and jurisdictions’ implementation of the act. Where states and jurisdictions fail to comply with the provisions, the Department of Justice may bring civil action to attain compliance with the bilingual language provisions.
section_title: Assistance Jurisdictions and States Reported Providing in 1996
paragraphs: Most jurisdictions that reported providing bilingual voting assistance in the 1996 general election said that they provided both written and oral assistance. As shown in figure 3, about 73 percent of the 292 jurisdictions responding reported that they provided both written and oral assistance. Seven percent reported that they did not provide bilingual voting assistance for the 1996 general election (see page 13). Moreover, five jurisdictions that reported providing assistance also reported providing assistance to other language minority groups that the act did not require them to assist.
For 14 jurisdictions that reported providing oral assistance only, the act required 12 to provide assistance to American Indian groups. In addition, some jurisdictions that reported providing written and oral assistance actually provided assistance to more than one covered ethnic group, and depending on the group assisted, the type of assistance they provided may have varied. For example, Gila, AZ, reported providing written and oral assistance to Hispanics but only oral assistance to Apache Indians whose language is not written to the extent needed for election translation.
Twenty-six of the 28 states surveyed responded. Of the responding states, 12 reported providing bilingual voting assistance. In addition, some states had passed their own legislation requiring some form of bilingual voting assistance (see page 15). Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Texas reported providing both written and oral assistance. Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, and Rhode Island reported providing written assistance only. And, Alaska reported providing oral assistance only. Moreover, two states, California and Hawaii, reported providing assistance to groups that the act did not require them to assist.
subsections: section_title: Written Assistance Reported by Jurisdictions and States
paragraphs: As shown in figures 4 and 5, bilingual ballots were the most frequent type of written assistance reported by jurisdictions and bilingual voting instructions were the single most frequent written assistance reported by states. Of the 258 jurisdictions that reported providing written assistance, 231 reported providing bilingual ballots. Of the 11 states that reported providing written assistance, 7 reported providing bilingual voting instructions. However, among jurisdictions, the types of bilingual voting assistance they reported providing ranged from ballot assistance alone to all voting materials provided to voters.
Appendix IV provides examples of translated voting instructions that were provided to some minority language voters and a portion of a bilingual ballot.
section_title: Oral Assistance Jurisdictions and States Reported
paragraphs: Almost all jurisdictions and states that provided minority language oral assistance did so by hiring bilingual poll and office workers or using the assistance of volunteers. Of the 227 jurisdictions that reported providing minority language oral assistance, 187 reported that they had hired bilingual workers and 35 reported that they used the assistance of volunteers. In addition, 13 jurisdictions reported providing minority language tapes describing the ballot and/or voting instructions. Of the eight states providing bilingual oral assistance, four employed bilingual workers and two hired interpreters to provide assistance. Figures 6 and 7 show the types of oral assistance provided by 227 jurisdictions and 8 states, respectively.
Twenty-eight of the 227 responding jurisdictions reporting oral assistance provided this assistance to American Indian groups. In addition, the state of Alaska reported providing oral assistance to American Indian groups in six jurisdictions. Of these 34 jurisdictions, only 4 reported providing bilingual written materials as well as oral assistance to the American Indian groups.
section_title: Some Covered Jurisdictions Reported Providing No Bilingual Assistance
paragraphs: Although the jurisdictions that we surveyed were designated to provide bilingual voting assistance, 20 jurisdictions reported that they did not do so for the 1996 general election. They reported not providing assistance because they said that they (1) were unable to locate or identify individuals in their areas needing assistance (5 jurisdictions), (2) were not contacted by individuals in need of assistance or did not know of individuals needing assistance (13 jurisdictions), or (3) believed they had been exempted from providing assistance (2 jurisdictions).
Of the 20 jurisdictions that reported not providing assistance, 17 were designated to provide it to American Indian groups and 3 were designated to provide it to Spanish heritage groups. Three of the jurisdictions designated to provide assistance to American Indian groups responded that they had contacted tribal officials to identify those in need of assistance but were told that no need existed. Another jurisdiction said that it had conducted a telephone survey of registered voters but was unable to find anyone in need of assistance. Further, 11 of the 20 jurisdictions indicated that should someone seek assistance, they had interpreters who were on call or could otherwise provide assistance.
According to the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section, one should interpret with care a jurisdiction’s response to the survey that it did not provide bilingual voting assistance. Most of the jurisdictions that indicated they had not provided bilingual voting assistance had relatively few members of the applicable language group, and the Attorney General’s minority language guidelines explain that the objective of the bilingual provisions is “to enable members of applicable language minority groups to participate effectively in the electoral process.” Accordingly, the Section said further inquiry would be needed to determine whether such a jurisdiction has violated the bilingual requirements of the act.
section_title: Some Jurisdictions and States Reported Providing Assistance to Groups That Were Not Required to Be Covered
paragraphs: Five jurisdictions and two states reported that in addition to providing assistance to minority language groups, as required under the act, they also furnished assistance to other groups. Table 1 identifies the jurisdictions and states that reported providing assistance to other groups and the groups that they assisted.
section_title: Some States Have Adopted Their Own Bilingual Voting Assistance Requirements
paragraphs: Several states have enacted laws requiring some form of minority language voting assistance during the election process. California, for example, requires that minority language sample ballots be posted in polling places in which the Secretary of State determines such assistance is needed. Also, when a need exists, county clerks are required to make reasonable efforts to recruit election officials fluent in minority languages. The state considers assistance to be needed when 3 percent or more of voting age citizens lack sufficient English skills to vote without assistance, or when citizens or organizations provide information supporting a need for assistance.
New Jersey requires that bilingual sample ballots be provided for election districts where Spanish is the primary language for 10 percent or more of the registered voters. Also, two additional election district board members who are Hispanic in origin and fluent in Spanish must be appointed in these districts.
In Texas, the election code specifies that bilingual election materials be provided in precincts where persons of Spanish origin or descent comprise 5 percent or more of the population of both the precinct and the county in which the precinct is located. In these covered precincts, the following materials must be presented bilingually: instruction cards, ballots, affidavits, other forms that voters are required to sign, and absentee voting materials. In addition, the judge presiding over an election in covered precincts must make reasonable efforts to appoint election clerks who are fluent in both English and Spanish.
Also some states, such as North Dakota and Colorado, have laws that entitle non-English speaking electors to have assistance, e.g., for preparing ballots or operating voting machines, when they request it.
section_title: Costs Jurisdictions and States Reported Incurring to Provide Bilingual Voting Assistance in 1996
paragraphs: In response to our survey questions on the cost of providing bilingual voting assistance, 34 jurisdictions said they reported all costs and 30 jurisdictions said they reported partial costs for 1996 elections. Likewise, two states reported all and five states reported partial bilingual voting assistance costs for 1996 elections.
For prior year elections, 29 jurisdictions and 6 states reported data for costs they incurred to provide bilingual voting assistance. Generally, jurisdictions and states said they did not keep track of the costs they incurred to provide the minority language portion of their voting assistance. Further, they are not required to identify such costs.
subsections: section_title: Few Jurisdictions and States Said They Identified Costs for Providing Bilingual Voting Assistance
paragraphs: Covered jurisdictions and states are not required to maintain data on their costs of providing bilingual voting assistance. However, a small number of jurisdictions and states reported cost information for providing bilingual voting assistance. About 76 percent of the jurisdictions (see fig. 8) and 42 percent of the states that provided bilingual voting assistance were unable to determine the cost of doing so. Some jurisdiction officials said that their jurisdictions have provided bilingual assistance for so many years that it is just a part of their total election process and they did not bother to keep track of the bilingual assistance costs.
Most of the jurisdictions that were unable to provide cost data, cited, as causes, the lack of specificity in (1) printers’ billing statements for election materials and (2) their accounting systems. In analyzing the jurisdictions’ responses, we noted that 135 of the 272 jurisdictions reported they were unable to provide cost data for providing written assistance but reported using only bilingual workers or volunteer assistants to provide oral assistance. Figure 9 shows the specific reasons 231 jurisdictions reported being unable to do so.
In addition, we contacted three printers of election materials and ballots in Texas to determine whether they could provide information on the cost of publishing the minority language portion of the ballot. None of the printers contacted could provide the costs of the minority portion of the ballot. One printer estimated that for 1996, the minority language portion of the ballot comprised about 25 percent of the total cost of ballots.
section_title: Jurisdictions’ Reported Costs for Elections in 1996
paragraphs: Of the 272 responding jurisdictions that reported providing bilingual voting assistance, 34 jurisdictions reported the total cost of providing such assistance, of which 6 jurisdictions said they provided oral assistance only but at no additional cost. In addition, 30 jurisdictions reported partial cost data. Table 2 shows the total costs jurisdictions reported they incurred to provide bilingual voting assistance under the act.
In addition to the above jurisdictions, table 3 provides information on the 30 jurisdictions that were able to provide partial cost information.
section_title: States’ Reported Costs for Elections in 1996
paragraphs: Of the 12 state respondents that reported providing bilingual voting assistance, Florida and Hawaii reported total bilingual voting assistance costs for the 1996 elections. Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, and Rhode Island provided partial cost data. Table 4 presents the cost data reported by the seven states for the 1996 elections.
section_title: States’ and Jurisdictions’ Reported Costs for Prior Elections
paragraphs: For prior election years 1992 to 1995, 29 jurisdictions and 6 states provided cost data. However, the cost data provided may not represent all bilingual costs.
The bilingual assistance costs jurisdictions reported for prior years’ elections varied widely. For example, Central Falls City, RI, reported costs of $83 for 1992, $164 for 1993, $175 for 1994, but $0 for 1995. Los Angeles County, CA, reported costs of $451,800 for 1993, $764,900 for 1994, and $292,400 for 1995. Table 5 shows the prior year election costs reported by the jurisdictions.
Similarly, the costs reported by the six states for prior election years varied. For example, for 1994, Hawaii reported costs of $610, while New Mexico reported costs of more than $70,000. Four of the states reported they did not incur any election costs in odd-numbered years, but other states did not provide cost information for a year. Table 6 shows the prior year election costs reported by the states.
We are providing copies of this report to the Chairmen of the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary and their respective Ranking Minority Members. We will also make copies available to others on request.
Major contributors to this report are listed in appendix V. If you have any questions about this report, please call me on (202) 512-8777.