Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo
A salon owner displays flyers as part of a voter campaign by a community-based organization focused on immigrant workers, in Staten Island, New York, October 23, 2020.
In 2010, Maria Tinoco-Webb decided to volunteer as a bilingual interpreter at the Berks County election office in Reading, Pennsylvania. A decade later, she still enjoys working with new-immigrant voters and the rewards that come with helping people vote for the first time.
“They’re so thankful for the fact that you’re there,” says Tinoco-Webb, the capacity development director for the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition. Most mornings are quiet, but as the day goes on workers drop by to vote before heading home, and they have plenty of questions, like “Can you remind me on what the process is?”
Twenty years ago, Berks County, located roughly an hour and a half northwest of Philadelphia, was one of many communities that reformed their voting processes after the passage of the Help America Vote Act. Known by the shorthand HAVA, the law established minimum standards for states to follow in several key areas of election administration, including access for people who speak languages other than English and ensuring that ballots comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Philadelphia employs roughly 8,500 poll workers on Election Day, but most of them are unilingual.
The county provides voting materials in Spanish. But in 2021, the county struggled with the fallout from incorrect ballots that were mailed to voters requesting Spanish-language instructions. The materials had a November 18 deadline for returning mail-in ballots. The problem was that the correct date was November 2. The episode sparked fears about possible deliberate efforts to suppress the results; county officials said it was an “unfortunate oversight.”
The failure to provide skilled personal assistance to a voter who does not understand election processes can ultimately compromise that person’s right to vote, according to Marcia Johnson-Blanco, the co-director of the Lawyers’ Committee’s Voting Rights Project. But despite the tremendous demand, there have never been enough bilingual workers to assist voters with limited English.
This year, Philadelphia election officials voted to triple the number of languages the city supports for elections. In addition to Spanish and Chinese, there will be support in Arabic, Haitian Creole, Khmer, Portuguese, Russian, and Vietnamese. (The state now offers an online Chinese voter registration portal as well.) The new monies will help election workers translate election materials, like voter guides, polling place signs, and ballot questions. However, the plan doesn’t solve all the voting problems for people with limited English proficiency. Low-income Latino neighborhoods still have some of the lowest turnout rates in the city despite the availability of Spanish-language materials.
This year, the candidates for governor, Democrat Josh Shapiro and Trump Republican Doug Mastriano, have stepped up their public appeals to Latino voters. NPR affiliate WHYY reported that Shapiro has made more appearances and launched his outreach earlier; Mastriano held a town hall meeting in late September.
Under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, which strengthens legal protections against discriminatory voting policies, Philadelphia must provide language assistance to voters if more than 5 percent of voting-age citizens do not speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process. In the mid-2000s, Philadelphia was found in violation of the VRA for having failed to establish Spanish-language voter information programs and provide sufficient bilingual assistance, issues that have since been resolved. A little more than 23 percent of the city’s population speaks languages other than English, including the 15 percent of the population that is Latino. The majority of Spanish speakers are Puerto Rican.
For new voters, trying to figure out the politics and the process is daunting.
About 10 percent of the population has limited English proficiency; these are the voters who need the most assistance. Often it is just a matter of reaching out to the community and inviting them to volunteer, and providing the training and support that they need, Johnson-Blanco says.
Philadelphia employs roughly 8,500 poll workers on Election Day, but most of them are unilingual. The pay, which is just below $15 an hour, simply isn’t enough of an incentive for bilingual residents who do not already have the day off from work or school. Poll workers now earn $200 for their Election Day service, an $85 increase over last year.
If elections are a stressful time, with 68 percent of adults responding that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was a significant source of stress in their lives, for new voters, trying to figure out the politics and the process is that much more daunting. In Mexico, for example, national elections are less frequent; presidents cannot be re-elected and serve one six-year term. Federal lawmakers serve three years. Another challenge in the U.S. is registering to vote. A voter must do online searches or get information from friends, family, or a local librarian. In Chile, the national government registers citizens automatically.
“You have to know your district, you have to know your place to vote, you have to know the dates when the elections happen,” says Clara Jerez, the pastoral associate at the Saint Thomas Aquinas Catholic Community, a group that is active in Philadelphia’s Latino community and encourages people to exercise the right to vote. With multiple election cycles for federal, state, and local offices, American elections “are much more complicated than any other country that I know,” she adds. Local elections can be especially confusing since voters must select school board members, sheriffs, prosecutors, coroners, trial court judges, city council, mayor, and many other positions depending on the jurisdiction.
To address election access issues, Philadelphia could move to regularly survey new voters to get a handle on the specific problems they face with registration and voting. Once city election officials accurately assess the needs of Latino voters, for example, seeking out Spanish-speaking students and seniors and offering them higher pay as an incentive to serve as poll workers would help improve voting experiences and solidify the rights of these new voters.
