ASIAN AMERICANS FACED DISCRIMINATION WHILE VOTING
New York, January 10, 2008 (IANS)

Asian American voters, including those of Indian origin, faced discrimination in the 2006 midterm elections due to improper voter identification checking, says an election watchdog. Flawed interpretation assistance to the limited English proficient voters as well as hostile and poorly trained poll workers too deterred many Asian American voters from exercising their right to vote, according to a report by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF).

The report, titled "Asian American Access to Democracy in the 2006 Elections", documents violations of the Voting Rights Act and Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The report is based on the New York-based AALDEF's survey of the November 2006 midterm elections in 25 cities in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Washington, Virginia, Maryland and Columbia district. All US House of Representatives seats and one third of the Senate seats were contested in the election.

In AALDEF's survey, 40% of Pakistani, 38% of Bangladeshi and 17% of Indian voters were found to have limited English proficiency. One-third of Urdu and one-third of Bengali-speakers stated that they needed the assistance of interpreters or translated voting materials in order to vote. Although only 17% of Indian American voters needed language assistance, most of these were Punjabi speaking.

The report goes on to detail impediments faced by Asian Americans while exercising their right to vote. At one poll site in Sunnyside, Queens, at least 20 voters complained that they were required to show ID without explanation. In Manhattan's Chinatown, one poll worker demanded identification from all Asian American voters waiting in queue.

"In Brooklyn, three South Asian voters were required to show IDs even though they had registered several years ago and had voted in multiple elections," the report says. In Brooklyn, New York, a South Asian voter's name was missing from the list of registered voters even though he had been casting his vote at the same poll site for years. He tried to complete a provisional ballot but may not have filled it out correctly because no Bengali-speaking interpreters were present to assist him.

It is mandatory for the New York City Board of Elections to translate voter registration forms and provide Bengali interpreters at poll sites in Queens and Brooklyn, and Urdu interpreters in Brooklyn. The report has also said that poll workers were hostile towards Asian American and limited English proficient voters. In the survey, 30 Asian American voters complained that poll workers were unhelpful or unaware of proper election procedures.

Some workers made disparaging remarks about minority language assistance.

One worker in Woodside, New York, said she thought it was a waste of the taxpayers' money to pay for so many interpreters and for the multiple copies of materials in different languages.

AALDEF has sent copies of the report and complaint letters to the US Department of Justice's Voting Section for further investigation. AALDEF is planning to have multilingual exit poll and monitor the presidential election this year.

New Jersey to have voter forms in Gujarati
New York, January 18, 2008 (IANS)

Gujarati will have the distinction of being the first Indian language in which voter forms will be available in the US. Voters in New Jersey, which has a large Gujarati population, can now register to vote using Gujarati forms.

Naturalisation rates within the South Asian community are on the rise all over the US, yet significant segments of them are limited English proficient (LEP), according to the South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), one of the organisations campaigning for translating voter material in languages other than English. Nearly one quarter of Indians, one third of Pakistanis and one half of Bangladeshis in the US fall in the LEP category, SAALT said in a press release.

"Language barriers should not be an obstacle to engage in the electoral process. Providing translated voter materials in South Asian languages is one way of ensuring that all citizens are able to participate in the political process," SAALT said.

The presidential elections in the US are to be held in November.