Musings: At our voting site, we speak a different language
By state law, some groups are entitled to language assistance when voting. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
I was excited, about to cast my first ballot since becoming a U.S. citizen a year earlier. I went to an early voting site in Hicksville on Nov. 2, expecting a Chinese interpreter to be on-site.
As a test, I asked, "Do you have a Mandarin interpreter?" The supervisor responded, "Is Mandarin similar to Spanish?"
I was surprised to find only a Spanish interpreter available. I voted but left the polling station feeling excluded.
The absence of a Chinese interpreter raises questions about the fairness of the U.S. voting process. How can our elections be truly accessible if language barriers are unaddressed? The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York was signed into law in 2022, mandating that political subdivisions provide language assistance if more than 4,000 citizens of voting age belong to a single language minority group and are limited in English proficiency.
Nassau County’s Asian population totals 185,150 — 13.4% of the total population in 2023 and well above the 4,000 threshold — so the county should have provided a Chinese interpreter. Yet this legal obligation was not met. Why not?
The solution requires vital local, state, and federal oversight.
First, the county executive’s office must ensure that the county Board of Elections adheres to the Lewis voting act. This should include routine inspections of polling sites on Election Day to ensure compliance. An effective mechanism could involve withholding funds from the Board of Elections if it fails to meet these legal requirements.
Second, the state attorney general’s office must take a more active role in enforcing statewide voting rights protections. The office should make it easier for the public to file complaints when denied language access, and it should impose penalties for noncompliance.
Third, federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division must hold the county’s Board of Elections accountable for upholding the law.
By strengthening oversight and ensuring robust enforcement at all levels of government, we can create a more inclusive and equitable voting system that serves all Nassau residents regardless of language or cultural background.
— Yilin Wang, Levittown
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