Bilingual Voting Assistance: Selected Jurisdictions' Strategies  
for Identifying Needs and Providing Assistance (18-JAN-08,	 
GAO-08-182).							 
                                                                 
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, contains, among other 
things, provisions designed to protect the voting rights of U.S. 
citizens of certain ethnic groups whose command of the English	 
language may be limited. The Department of Justice (DOJ) enforces
these provisions, and the Election Assistance Commission (EAC)	 
serves as a national clearinghouse for election information and  
procedures. The Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott  
King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006
mandated that GAO study the implementation of bilingual voting	 
under Section 203 of the act. This report discusses (1) the ways 
that selected jurisdictions covered under Section 203 of the	 
Voting Rights Act have provided bilingual voting assistance as of
the November 2006 general election and any subsequent elections  
through June 2007, and the challenges they reportedly faced in	 
providing such assistance; and (2) the perceived usefulness of	 
this bilingual voting assistance, and the extent to which the	 
selected jurisdictions evaluated the usefulness of such 	 
assistance to language minority voters. To obtain details about  
this voting assistance, GAO obtained information from election	 
officials in 14 of the 296 jurisdictions required to provide it, 
as well as from community representatives in 11 of these	 
jurisdictions. These jurisdictions were selected to reflect a	 
range of characteristics such as geographic diversity and varying
language minority groups.					 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-08-182 					        
    ACCNO:   A79931						        
  TITLE:     Bilingual Voting Assistance: Selected Jurisdictions'     
Strategies for Identifying Needs and Providing Assistance	 
     DATE:   01/18/2008 
  SUBJECT:   Civil rights					 
	     Constitutional rights				 
	     Elections						 
	     Forms						 
	     Minorities 					 
	     Minority education 				 
	     Policy evaluation					 
	     Program management 				 
	     Reporting requirements				 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Voting						 
	     Policies and procedures				 
	     Voting systems					 

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GAO-08-182

   

     * [1]Results in Brief
     * [2]Background

          * [3]Bilingual Voting Requirements and Covered Jurisdictions
          * [4]The U.S. Election System
          * [5]Prior Work Related to the Elections Process

     * [6]Election Officials in All But One Jurisdiction Reported Prov

          * [7]All But One Jurisdiction Reported Providing Some Type of Bil

               * [8]Voter Registration Assistance Reported by Jurisdictions
               * [9]Bilingual Absentee and Early Voting Assistance Reported
                 by J
               * [10]Election Day Assistance Reported by Jurisdictions
               * [11]Bilingual Assistance Reported by Community-Based
                 Organizatio

          * [12]Jurisdictions Reported Using Various Strategies to Implement

               * [13]Nine Jurisdictions Employed Bilingual Voting Assistance
                 Coor
               * [14]Most Jurisdictions We Contacted Worked with
                 Community-Based
               * [15]Most Jurisdictions We Contacted Had Bilingual Poll
                 Workers a
               * [16]Jurisdictions' Targeting of Bilingual Voting Assistance
                 Effo
               * [17]Most Jurisdictions Conducted Outreach but Reportedly
                 Used Di

          * [18]All 14 Jurisdictions Reported Challenges in Providing Biling

               * [19]Many Jurisdictions Reported Difficulties Recruiting
                 Bilingua
               * [20]Some Jurisdictions Reported Difficulties Targeting Those
                 Vot
               * [21]Many Jurisdictions Reported Difficulties Designing or
                 Transl
               * [22]Some Jurisdictions Reported Difficulty Allocating
                 Sufficient
               * [23]Many Election Officials We Contacted Desired Additional
                 Guid
               * [24]The U.S. Election Assistance Commission Has Taken Recent
                 Ste

     * [25]Some Forms of Bilingual Voting Assistance Were Perceived as

          * [26]Certain Types of Assistance Were Viewed as More Useful than
          * [27]Some Election Officials and Community-Based Organization Rep
          * [28]Conducting Formal Evaluations of the Usefulness and Effect o

     * [29]Concluding Observations
     * [30]Agency Comments
     * [31]GAO Contact
     * [32]Staff Acknowledgments
     * [33]GAO's Mission
     * [34]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

          * [35]Order by Mail or Phone

     * [36]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
     * [37]Congressional Relations
     * [38]Public Affairs
     * [39]PDF6-Ordering Information.pdf

          * [40]GAO's Mission
          * [41]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

               * [42]Order by Mail or Phone

          * [43]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
          * [44]Congressional Relations
          * [45]Public Affairs

Report to Congressional Committees

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

January 2008

BILINGUAL VOTING ASSISTANCE

Selected Jurisdictions' Strategies for Identifying Needs and Providing
Assistance

GAO-08-182

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 4
Background 6
Election Officials in All But One Jurisdiction Reported Providing
Bilingual Voting Assistance, but Experienced Challenges 12
Some Forms of Bilingual Voting Assistance Were Perceived as More Useful
than Others, but Formally Evaluating Its Usefulness Presented Many
Challenges 30
Concluding Observations 38
Agency Comments 39
Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 42
Appendix II Section 203 Coverage Criteria Regarding Language Minority
Groups and Covered Jurisdictions 48
Appendix III DOJ Actions under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act,
1980-2007 62
Appendix IV Examples of Bilingual Voting Written Assistance Materials 64
Appendix V Additional Challenges to Evaluating the Usefulness of Bilingual
Voting Assistance 73
Appendix VI Comments from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission 75
Appendix VII GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 77
Related GAO Products 78

Tables

Table 1: Stages of the Election Process 10
Table 2: Types of Bilingual Voting Assistance Reportedly Provided by
Election Offices, by Stage in the Election Process 14
Table 3: Examples of Bilingual Voter Registration Assistance Reportedly
Provided by Election Offices 15
Table 4: Examples of Bilingual Absentee and Early Voting Assistance
Reportedly Provided by Election Offices 16
Table 5: Examples of Bilingual Election Day Assistance Reportedly Provided
by Election Offices 17
Table 6: Examples of Bilingual Assistance Reportedly Provided by CBOs 19
Table 7: Most Useful Types of Bilingual Voting Assistance, as Reported by
Election Officials and CBO Representatives 31
Table 8: Suggestions on How Election Offices Can Improve the Usefulness of
Bilingual Voting Assistance, according to Election Officials and CBO
Representatives 34
Table 9: Jurisdictions Selected for GAO Site Visits and the Related
Information Used to Make the Selections 44
Table 10: Jurisdictions Covered under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act
50

Figures

Figure 1: Section 203 Coverage Criteria for Implementation of the Voting
Rights Act Provisions Regarding Language Minority Groups 49
Figure 2: Excerpt of a Chinese Voter Registration Form - King County,
Wash. 64
Figure 3: English/Chinese Bilingual Absentee Ballot Request Form - King
County, Wash. 65
Figure 4: English/Vietnamese Bilingual Sample Ballot - Boston, Mass. 66
Figure 5: English/Spanish Bilingual Official Ballot - Boston, Mass. 67
Figure 6: Spanish Voting Instructions - Los Angeles, Calif. 68
Figure 7: Bilingual Polling Place Signs - King County, Wash. 70
Figure 8: Bilingual Poll Worker Nametags and Buttons - Orange County,
Calif. 71
Figure 9: Multilingual Tally Card - Los Angeles, Calif. 72

Abbreviations

CBO community-based organization
DOJ U.S. Department of Justice
EAC U.S. Election Assistance Commission
HAVA Help America Vote Act of 2002

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
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separately.

United States Government Accountability Office
Washington, DC 20548

January 18, 2008

Congressional Committees

The right to vote has been called one of the most fundamental rights in
our democratic system of government because its effective exercise is
preservative of all others. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended,
(Voting Rights Act) addressed the problem of denial of access to the right
to vote by, among other things, outlawing specified practices and
procedures such as literacy tests. In 1975, the Voting Rights Act was
amended to include section 203, which requires certain jurisdictions^1 to
provide bilingual election materials and assistance to protect the voting
rights of U.S. citizens of certain ethnic groups whose command of the
English language may be limited. These provisions were initially set to
expire in 1985 but have been extended several times. Debate about whether
to require bilingual voting assistance includes advocates of bilingual
voting assistance who assert that it allows language minority voters to
more fully participate in our nation's electoral process, while critics
contend that the costs incurred in providing such assistance are not
warranted because the assistance is not being used by language minority
voters.

Enacted on July 27, 2006, the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta
Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006
extended the bilingual provisions until 2032, and required GAO to study
the implementation, effectiveness, and efficiency of current bilingual
voting requirements under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act.^2 As
discussed with your offices, this report does not address the efficiency
of providing bilingual voting assistance because of the lack of cost data
for providing such assistance. As noted in a March 2006 report, professors
at Arizona State University surveyed jurisdictions covered by Section 203
and reported that a majority of the responding jurisdictions were unable
to provide the costs of their bilingual assistance.^3 Given this recent
survey of jurisdictions, we focused on obtaining more detailed information
about bilingual voting assistance from selected jurisdictions across the
country. Our objectives were to determine:

           o the ways that selected jurisdictions covered under Section 203
           of the Voting Rights Act have provided bilingual voting assistance
           as of the November 2006 general election and any subsequent
           elections through June 2007, and the challenges they reportedly
           faced in providing such assistance; and

           o the perceived usefulness of this bilingual voting assistance,
           and the extent to which the selected jurisdictions evaluated the
           usefulness of such assistance to language minority voters.

^1There are 296 jurisdictions required to provide bilingual assistance
under Section 203. For the specific criteria for determining which
jurisdictions are to be covered under Section 203, see appendix II.

^2Section 9 of Pub. L. No. 109-246, 120 Stat. 577 (2006).

To meet our objectives, we visited or collected information from 14
jurisdictions required to provide bilingual voting assistance under
Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act (covered jurisdictions) in 12 states.
We considered surveying all of the 296 covered jurisdictions but decided
against doing so for several reasons, including the March 2006 report
cited above on the results of a survey of these same jurisdictions about
similar issues. (For a more detailed discussion of these considerations as
well as a comprehensive description of our methodology, see app. I.) We
chose the 14 jurisdictions because they reflected a variety of
characteristics, such as size (i.e., voting age population), geographic
diversity, and varying language minority groups. We wanted a diverse group
of sites to allow us to report on a wide range of jurisdictions'
experiences with providing bilingual voting assistance. We also obtained
information from representatives of 38 community-based organizations (CBO)
in 11 of the 14 jurisdictions.^4 We either conducted on-site interviews
with or obtained information from election officials, CBO representatives,
and, to a limited extent, language minority voters in the 14 jurisdictions
regarding the bilingual voting assistance provided during the November
2006 general election and any subsequent elections through June 2007. In
addition, we obtained and reviewed supporting documentation as evidence of
the types of bilingual voting assistance (e.g., sample ballots, pamphlets,
voter education materials, etc.) reportedly provided to language minority
voters in these jurisdictions. We also obtained these election officials'
and CBO representatives' perceptions about the usefulness of bilingual
voting assistance to language minority voters as well as information on
any efforts to evaluate its usefulness. Because we selected a
nongeneralizable sample of election jurisdictions, the experiences and
views discussed in this report cannot be generalized to all 296
jurisdictions required to provide bilingual voting assistance under
Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act.^5

^3Dr. James Tucker and Dr. Rodolfo Espino, "Minority Language Assistance
Practices in Public Elections" (Arizona State University: Mar. 7, 2006).

^4For purposes of this report, CBO is defined as community leaders,
educators, business groups, labor groups, parent-teacher organizations,
senior citizen groups, church groups, social and fraternal organizations,
veterans groups, and others who are knowledgeable about bilingual voting
issues affecting the relevant language minority community.

In addition to the information we obtained from these jurisdictions, we
conducted interviews with and obtained information from other sources. We
interviewed officials and obtained pertinent documents from the U.S.
Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, which is responsible
for providing program guidance and enforcing compliance with the
requirements under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act. We also
interviewed officials from the U. S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC),
which was established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to
serve, among other things, as a clearinghouse and information resource for
election officials with respect to the administration of federal
elections. Additionally, we interviewed the Chief of the Census Bureau
office that determines which jurisdictions are covered under Section 203
of the Voting Rights Act. We reviewed pertinent federal laws, regulations,
and agency guidance pertaining to the Section 203 bilingual voting
provisions. We also reviewed prior GAO work,^6 other national studies,
reports and news articles, attended several national conferences, and
interviewed the secretary of state for one state with jurisdictions
covered by Section 203 to gain further insight regarding these issues. We
conducted this performance audit from October 2006 to January 2008 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient,
appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence
obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions
based on our audit objectives.

^5A nongeneralizable, or nonprobability, sample is when nonstatistical
judgment is used to select members of the sample, usually using specific
characteristics of the population as criteria. Results from a
nongeneralizable sample cannot be used to make inferences about a
population, because in a nongeneralizable sample some elements of the
population being studied have no chance or an unknown chance of being
selected as part of the sample.

^6See related GAO products at the end of this report for a list of our
prior work.

Results in Brief

All but 1 of the 14 election jurisdictions we contacted reported providing
some form of oral or written bilingual voting assistance through such
things as the use of bilingual poll workers and written translations of
voting materials, and each of the 14 jurisdictions reported challenges in
providing assistance. Election offices in most contacted jurisdictions
reported providing similar types of oral and written bilingual voting
assistance at each stage of the voting process--from voter registration to
Election Day--for the November 2006 and subsequent elections. In nine of
the contacted jurisdictions, the bilingual voting assistance reportedly
provided by the election offices was also supplemented by the voluntary
efforts of community-based organizations. In part because DOJ guidance
intentionally provides jurisdictions some flexibility in how they
implement bilingual voting requirements, election offices reported using
varied strategies to recruit bilingual poll workers, determine where to
target bilingual voting assistance programs, and conduct outreach to the
language minority community. Election officials in each of the 14
jurisdictions reported experiencing a variety of challenges in
implementing bilingual assistance programs, but some key challenges were
prevalent among most election offices contacted. For example, the majority
of these election offices reported experiencing difficulty in recruiting
bilingual poll workers, effectively targeting where to provide bilingual
voting assistance, and designing and translating the bilingual assistance
materials provided. Election officials in 11 jurisdictions also cited not
allocating sufficient resources to their bilingual program as a challenge
to providing more effective bilingual voting assistance. Officials in nine
jurisdictions also told us that they would benefit from additional
guidance or information on best practices for implementing bilingual
assistance programs. The EAC has taken recent steps to provide additional
guidance and information to jurisdictions on providing bilingual
assistance, including plans to develop a set of management guidelines for
jurisdictions to use in implementing their programs.

Although we identified little data measuring the usefulness of various
types of bilingual voting assistance, election officials in eight
jurisdictions and community-based organization representatives in seven
jurisdictions we contacted told us that they believed certain forms of
assistance were more useful than others. While none of the jurisdictions
reported conducting formal evaluations of the effectiveness of their
bilingual assistance programs, the majority reported using various
informal means to get information about the effectiveness of certain
aspects of their bilingual voting assistance programs. Both election
officials and CBO representatives generally agreed that having bilingual
poll workers available on Election Day was a key form of assistance to
voters. Election officials in four jurisdictions and community-based
organization representatives in six jurisdictions believed that having
translated written materials was also a key form of assistance. However,
election officials in 10 jurisdictions and community-based organization
representatives in 9 jurisdictions stated that modifications could be made
that would improve the usefulness of the bilingual services provided to
voters. For example, election officials in four jurisdictions and
community-based organization representatives in nine jurisdictions stated
that election offices' efforts to conduct additional outreach to
individual voters and language minority groups would be key to improving
the usefulness of the bilingual assistance provided to voters. Election
officials in 12 of the jurisdictions as well as community-based
organization representatives in 3 of the jurisdictions we included in our
study reported gathering information about the usefulness of certain
aspects of the bilingual voting assistance provided by the election
offices. For example, election officials in four jurisdictions reported
they had conducted post-election surveys of or obtained comments from poll
workers to determine the number of voters who had used bilingual
assistance at the polls or obtain voter feedback. While the use of formal
program evaluation tools has proven to be a successful means for federal
agencies to improve program effectiveness, accountability, and service
delivery, conducting formal evaluations of the usefulness and effect of
bilingual voting assistance is difficult. Three key difficulties include
identifying the objectives and the appropriate indicators of success,
determining how to measure these indicators once they have been
identified, and isolating the effects of bilingual voter assistance
efforts on language minority voters from more general voter outreach
efforts or other influences on election processes.

We provided a draft of this report to DOJ and the EAC for review and
comment. DOJ did not provide comments on the draft of this report but did
provide technical edits, which we incorporated where appropriate. EAC
provided written comments that described its recent activities related to
bilingual voting assistance.

Background

Bilingual Voting Requirements and Covered Jurisdictions

The Voting Rights Act^7 was intended, among other things, to protect the
voting rights of U.S. citizens of certain ethnic groups whose command of
the English language may be limited. Language minority provisions
contained in Section 203 require covered states and covered
jurisdictions--political subdivisions--that meet the act's coverage
criteria to provide written materials and other assistance, in the
language of certain "language minority groups," in addition to English.^8
Section 203 defines these language minorities as persons who are of
Alaskan Native, American Indian, Asian American, or Spanish heritage. (See
app. II for the specific criteria for determining which jurisdictions are
to be covered under Section 203 and a list of the covered jurisdictions.)

Where the applicable language minority groups have a commonly used written
language, Section 203 requires covered jurisdictions to provide written
election materials in the languages of the groups. Where the language of
the applicable minority group is oral or unwritten, or in the case of
American Indian and Alaskan Native languages if the predominant language
is historically unwritten, only oral information and assistance is
required. With respect to all covered jurisdictions, DOJ guidance provides
that oral assistance and publicity (e.g., public information
advertisements on the radio) should be provided to the extent needed to
enable members of the applicable language minority group to participate
effectively in the electoral process. Section 203 requirements apply to
the entire election process--from voter registration through Election
Day--for all federal, state, and local elections in the covered
jurisdictions.

The DOJ Civil Rights Division is to enforce the covered states and
jurisdictions' compliance with the Section 203 bilingual language
requirements. Where covered states and jurisdictions fail to comply with
the provisions, DOJ may bring a civil action to enforce compliance with
the bilingual language provisions. DOJ may also choose to enter into a
settlement agreement, memorandum of agreement, or consent decree with a
jurisdiction to ensure compliance. These agreements, which may vary from
jurisdiction to jurisdiction, outline the steps necessary to comply with
the language provisions and may cover issues such as the number of
bilingual poll workers needed or the materials to be translated. (See app.
III for a list of jurisdictions that have been subject to DOJ actions
related to Section 203 since 1980.)

^7Pub. L. No 89-110, 79 Stat. 437 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. SS1973
to 1973bb-1).

^8Another language provision is contained in Section 4(f)(4) of the Voting
Rights Act but is not included in the scope of this report. Both of these
provisions require covered jurisdictions to provide certain voting
materials and assistance in the language of the applicable minority group
but Section 4(f)(4) requires covered jurisdictions to submit specified
types of proposed election law changes to the Department of Justice for
preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The formulas that
trigger coverage are distinct for the two provisions. DOJ took actions
under Section 4(f)(4) against Ector County, R.I. (2005), Brazos County,
Tex. (2006), and Galveston County, Tex. (2007).

DOJ has published general guidance for election officials on how to comply
with Section 203 in the Code of Federal Regulations^9 and on its Web site.
This guidance provides broad information about a number of topics,
including determining the exact language covered within the Alaskan
Native, American Indian, Asian American, or Spanish heritage language
groups and the activities affected by the language provisions. For
example, according to DOJ, jurisdictions should take all reasonable steps
to allow members of applicable language minority groups to be effectively
informed and participate effectively in the electoral process, but may
also exercise some discretion as to where they focus their efforts. DOJ
guidance notes that 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 assistance. In
addition, DOJ guidance advises that compliance is more likely to be
achieved when jurisdictions work with local language minority groups to
determine the best methods to inform the language minority community about
available assistance. Additionally, DOJ instructs that when evaluating
whether a jurisdiction has provided a level of oral assistance needed to
enable applicable language minority groups to participate effectively in
the electoral process, DOJ will consider the number of bilingual poll
workers utilized. It also stresses the importance of accurately translated
materials. Furthermore, the DOJ Civil Rights Division states that its
guidance cannot be prescriptive because election systems and the
circumstances of language minority communities vary widely across the
United States. Instead, DOJ provides guiding principles and practical
suggestions to election officials.

Apart from DOJ's compliance guidelines, election jurisdictions, including
those covered by Section 203, may also receive information from the EAC
designed to assist election officials in meeting the needs of
limited-English proficient voters. The Help America Vote Act of 2002
(HAVA) established the EAC to assist in the administration of federal
elections and to otherwise provide assistance with the administration of
certain federal election laws and programs, to establish minimum election
administration standards for states and units of local government with
responsibility for the administration of federal elections, and for other
purposes. Section 202 of HAVA, in general, directs the EAC to serve as a
national clearinghouse and resource for the compilation of information and
review of procedures with respect to the administration of federal
elections. In addition, Section 801 of HAVA transferred to the EAC all
clearinghouse functions that the Office of Election
Administration--established within the Federal Election
Commission--exercised before the enactment of HAVA. These responsibilities
included providing recommendations and tools so that election officials
could provide materials in alternate languages for limited English
proficiency voters. Furthermore, HAVA requires the EAC to conduct periodic
studies, as the EAC may determine, to include: (1) methods of ensuring the
accessibility of voting, registration, polling places, and voting
equipment to all voters, including individuals with disabilities
(including the blind and visually impaired), Native American or Alaska
Native citizens, and voters with limited proficiency in the English
language, and (2) the technical feasibility of providing voting materials
in eight or more languages for voters who speak those languages and who
have limited English proficiency.

^928 C.F.R. Part 55.

The U.S. Election System

The U.S. election system is highly decentralized, with primary
responsibility for managing, planning, and conducting elections residing
at the local jurisdiction level. As we reported in June 2006, there are
about 10,500 local government jurisdictions responsible for conducting
statewide and federal elections nationwide.^10 Of these jurisdictions,
only 296 are covered by Section 203.^11 States can be divided into two
groups
according to how they delegate election responsibilities to local
jurisdictions:

           o Most states delegate statewide and federal election
           responsibilities primarily to counties, with a few of these states
           delegating these responsibilities to some cities. One state,
           Alaska, is divided into four election regions comprised of
           boroughs, municipalities, and other census areas known by the U.S.
           Census Bureau as county equivalents. State personnel in these
           regions are responsible for conducting statewide and federal
           elections. This first group of states contains about one-fourth of
           the local election jurisdictions nationwide.

           o The remaining states delegate these election responsibilities to
           subcounty governmental units know by the U.S. Census Bureau as
           minor civil divisions. These include entities such as cities,
           towns, villages, and townships. This second group of states
           contains about three-fourths of the local election jurisdictions
           nationwide.

^10GAO, Elections: The Nation's Evolving Election System as Reflected in
the November 2004 General Election, [46]GAO-06-450 (Washington, D.C.: June
6, 2006).

^11There are 296 covered jurisdictions listed in the Federal Register, but
the exact number of elections offices tasked with providing bilingual
voting assistance is much higher. We do not know this exact number because
for each of the 296 covered jurisdictions, there may be many covered
sub-jurisdictions such as cities or utility districts that are required to
comply with Section 203 for any of the elections they administer.

Nearly all of the 296 jurisdictions covered under Section 203 are
counties, but they also include county equivalents in some states and
minor civil divisions. In addition to all elections conducted by these
jurisdictions, the provisions of Section 203 also apply to the local
elections conducted by sub-jurisdictions, such as cities, towns, school
districts and other special purpose districts, contained within these
listed jurisdictions.

Local election jurisdictions vary widely in size and complexity, ranging
from small New England townships to Los Angeles County, Calif., whose
number of registered voters exceeds that of many states. Our election
system is based upon a complex interaction of people (voters, election
officials, and poll workers), processes (controls), and technology that
must work effectively together to achieve a successful election. Every
stage of the election process--registration, absentee and early voting,
preparing for and conducting Election Day activities, and provisional^12
voting--is affected by the interface of people, processes, and technology.
(See table 1 for a discussion of the stages of the election process.)

^12Provisional voting is the use of provisional ballots (subject to later
verification of registration) in elections in certain circumstances where
a voter's eligibility is unclear.

Table 1: Stages of the Election Process

Stage of the election                                                      
process               Description and key elements                         
Voter registration    While voter registration is not a federal            
                         requirement, the District of Columbia and all        
                         states, except North Dakota, generally require       
                         citizens to register before voting. The deadline and 
                         requirements for registering vary, but at a minimum, 
                         state eligibility provisions typically require a     
                         person to be a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years of    
                         age, and a resident of the state, with some states   
                         requiring a minimum residency period. Citizens apply 
                         to register to vote in various ways, such as at      
                         motor vehicle agencies and public assistance and     
                         disability services offices, during voter            
                         registration drives, by mail, or at local voter      
                         registrar offices. Election officials process        
                         registration applications and compile and maintain   
                         the list of registered voters that is to be used     
                         throughout the administration of an election.        
Absentee and early    All states and the District of Columbia have         
voting                provisions allowing voters to cast their ballot      
                         before Election Day by voting absentee--with         
                         variations on who may vote absentee, whether the     
                         voter needs an excuse, and the time frames for       
                         applying for and submitting absentee ballots. In     
                         addition, some states also allow early voting, in    
                         which the voter goes to a specific location to vote  
                         in person prior to Election Day. As with absentee    
                         voting, the specific circumstances for early         
                         voting--such as the dates, times, and locations--are 
                         based on the state and local requirements.           
Conducting elections  Election officials perform a broad range of          
                         activities in preparation for and on Election Day    
                         itself. Prior to an election, officials recruit and  
                         train poll workers to have the skills needed to      
                         perform their Election Day duties. Where needed and  
                         required, election officials must also recruit poll  
                         workers who speak languages other than English.      
                         Election officials also locate and reserve polling   
                         places, prepare ballots and seek to educate voters   
                         on topics such as what the ballot looks like, how to 
                         use a voting machine, and the location of their      
                         particular polling place. These outreach efforts may 
                         be conducted by attending CBO meetings or events,    
                         informational mailings to voters, or advertisements  
                         in the local media. Finally, election officials seek 
                         to ensure that voting equipment, ballots, and        
                         supplies are delivered to polling places.            
                                                                              
                         On Election Day, poll workers set up and open the    
                         polling places. This can include tasks such as       
                         setting up the voting machines or voting booths,     
                         readying supplies, testing equipment, posting        
                         required signs and voter education information, and  
                         completing paperwork. Before a voter receives a      
                         ballot or is directed to a voting machine, poll      
                         workers typically are to verify his or her           
                         eligibility. In some cases, poll workers may provide 
                         language assistance to language minority voters.     
Provisional voting    Most states are required to permit individuals,      
                         under certain circumstances, to cast a provisional   
                         ballot in federal elections.^a While states may      
                         choose to allow provisional ballots under other      
                         circumstances, HAVA requires that an individual be   
                         permitted to cast a provisional ballot upon the      
                         execution of a written affirmation before an         
                         election official at the polling place.^b The        
                         written affirmation must state that the individual   
                         is registered to vote in that jurisdiction and       
                         eligible to vote in that election. HAVA specifies    
                         that either the provisional ballot or the written    
                         affirmation information be transmitted to an         
                         appropriate election official for a determination as 
                         to whether the individual is eligible to vote under  
                         state law. If individuals are determined to be       
                         eligible voters, their provisional ballots are to be 
                         counted as votes in accordance with state law.       

Source: GAO.

^aThe United States Election Assistance Commission, 2004 Election Day
Survey: "How We Voted: People, Ballots, and Polling Places" (Sept. 2005).

^bUnder HAVA, states that had either (1) no voter registration requirements
for voters with respect to federal elections (e.g., North Dakota) or (2)
polling place registration on Election Day with respect to federal
elections (as in Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming)
in effect on and after August 1, 1994, are not subject to HAVA's
provisional voting requirements.

Prior Work Related to the Elections Process

Over the years we have completed a number of reviews related to elections.
In 1986^13 and 1997^14 we issued reports addressing the types of bilingual
assistance provided by covered jurisdictions, as well as the cost of this
assistance.^15 In our 1997 report, we found that most jurisdictions
reportedly were providing both oral and written assistance. We also issued
a series of reports following the November 2000 general election
addressing a range of issues that emerged during that election and
identifying challenges that election officials reported facing throughout
the election process. In addition, we have issued reports since the
November 2004 general election on voter registration issues and security
and reliability of electronic voting. In 2006, we reported on a wide array
of election issues including discussing, at each major stage of the
election process, changes to election systems since the 2000 election, and
challenges encountered in the November 2004 general election.^16 (See
related GAO products at the end of this report for a list of our prior
work.)

In addition to our work on elections, professors at Arizona State
University released a comprehensive study in March 2006 regarding language
minority assistance practices in public elections.^17 Their study, based
on survey data obtained from jurisdictions currently or previously covered
by Section 203, updated the information from our 1986 and 1997 reports
regarding the costs associated with providing language assistance and also
discussed the types of assistance provided. About half of the surveyed
jurisdictions responded, and of the respondents, a majority was unable to
provide the costs of their bilingual assistance programs. Additionally,
just over 80 percent of responding jurisdictions reported providing some
type of language assistance.

^13GAO, Bilingual Voting Assistance: Costs of and Use during the November
1984 General Election, [47]GAO/GGD-86-134BR (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 15,
1986).

^14GAO, Bilingual Voting Assistance: Assistance Provided and Costs,
[48]GAO/GGD-97-81 (Washington, D.C.: May 9, 1997).

^15Our prior efforts to determine the costs associated with providing
bilingual voting assistance revealed that because jurisdictions and states
are not required to maintain such cost data, information available on
their costs was scant.

^16GAO, Elections: The Nation's Evolving Election System as Reflected in
the November 2004 General Election, [49]GAO-06-450 (Washington, D.C.: June
6, 2006).

^17Dr. James Tucker and Dr. Rodolfo Espino, "Minority Language Assistance
Practices in Public Elections" (Arizona State University: Mar. 7, 2006).

Election Officials in All But One Jurisdiction Reported Providing Bilingual
Voting Assistance, but Experienced Challenges

Election officials in 13 of the 14 jurisdictions included in our review
reported providing some type of bilingual voting assistance at each stage
of the election process but also reported challenges in providing this
assistance. In part because DOJ's guidance intentionally provides
jurisdictions some flexibility in how they implement bilingual voting
requirements and the needs and preferences of language minority
communities vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, election officials in
these 13 jurisdictions reported using varying strategies to organize their
bilingual voting assistance program staff and offices, work with CBOs,
recruit bilingual poll workers, determine where to target their bilingual
voting assistance programs, and conduct outreach to the language minority
community. In addition, election officials in these 13 jurisdictions also
reported experiencing a variety of challenges in providing bilingual
assistance, with the key challenges being: (1) recruiting and ensuring
quality performance of bilingual poll workers; (2) targeting bilingual
voting assistance; (3) designing and translating bilingual voting
assistance materials; and (4) allocating sufficient resources to provide
bilingual voting assistance. Although election officials in 12
jurisdictions reported receiving some degree of guidance or assistance for
addressing Section 203 requirements from DOJ and other sources, officials
in 9 jurisdictions reported wanting additional guidance or assistance. The
EAC has taken recent steps to provide additional guidance and information
to jurisdictions on providing bilingual assistance.

All But One Jurisdiction Reported Providing Some Type of Bilingual Voting
Assistance throughout the Election Process

Election officials in 13 of the 14 jurisdictions reported providing some
type of written assistance and/or oral assistance for language minority
voters.^18 This assistance was provided throughout the election
process--from voter registration to Election Day. Written assistance
included such things as translated voter registration forms, ballots,
sample ballots, instructions, and signs. Oral assistance included
bilingual phone and in-office assistance, translated audio instructions
and ballots, bilingual poll workers, and bilingual in-person outreach
activities. The various types of bilingual voting assistance and the
numbers of jurisdictions that reported providing each type of assistance
at each stage of the election process are summarized in table 2.

^18The one election jurisdiction included in our study where election
officials did not report actively providing any bilingual voting
assistance is the Kenai Peninsula Borough in Alaska. The Kenai Peninsula
Borough Clerk is responsible for the administration of local elections
whereas the State of Alaska, Division of Elections, is responsible for the
administration of statewide and federal elections. A local Kenai Peninsula
Borough election official reported that while they were aware that the
Kenai Peninsula Borough was covered under Section 203, they maintained
that bilingual voting assistance wasn't needed and provided documentation
that one Native Alaskan community declined the assistance. In addition,
state election officials in one region, who are responsible for the
administration of statewide and federal elections in Kenai Peninsula
Borough such as the November 2006 election, did not report making any
special arrangements to provide bilingual voting assistance in this
particular area of the state. However, we learned that local poll workers
in at least two targeted communities took the initiative to provide
bilingual voting assistance to those who sought it for this election.
Senior officials with Alaska's Division of Elections reported that they
were, at the time of the 2006 election, unaware that Kenai Peninsula
Borough was covered under Section 203. These officials also told us that
they are in the process of reviewing their bilingual voting assistance
program.

Table 2: Types of Bilingual Voting Assistance Reportedly Provided by
Election Offices, by Stage in the Election Process

Stages of the                        Types of assistance^a
election process     Written                     Oral          
Voter registration      o Bilingual or              o In-person outreach
                           translated voter            activities (12)
                           registration forms          o Bilingual in-office
                           (10)^b                      assistance (10)
                                                       o Bilingual phone
                                                       assistance (10)
Absentee and early      o Bilingual or              o Bilingual phone
voting                  translated ballots (12)     assistance (11)
                           o Bilingual or              o Bilingual in-office
                           translated absentee         assistance (10)
                           voter registration forms    o In-person outreach
                           (8)                         activities (10)
                           o Translated voting         o Translated audio
                           instructions (7)            ballots (7)
                           o Bilingual signs (5)       o Bilingual in-person
                           o Translated sample         early voting
                           ballots (4)                 assistance (5)
Election Day voting     o Bilingual or              o Bilingual poll
(includes               translated ballots (12)     workers (13)
provisional voting)     o Translated voting         o Recorded audio
                           instructions (11)           ballots (12) and
                           o Bilingual signs and       instructions (11)
                           buttons (11)                o Bilingual phone
                           o Translated sample         assistance (9)
                           ballots (10)                o Special interpreters
                                                       (6) and non-paid
                                                       assistants (2)

Source: GAO analysis of responses from election officials.

^aFor each of the election offices contacted, there was little variation
between the types of assistance provided in the 2006 General Election and
in other subsequent elections. Thus, we did not distinguish between the
2006 General Election and other subsequent elections in this table.

^bThe number of jurisdictions where each type of assistance was reportedly
provided is in parentheses.

  Voter Registration Assistance Reported by Jurisdictions

Election officials in 12 jurisdictions reported providing some type of
bilingual voter registration assistance and 11 of these jurisdictions
reported offering both oral and written assistance. All but four election
offices included in our study reported providing translated voter
registration forms and all but two reported conducting in-person voter
registration outreach activities targeted at the language minority
community. Election offices reported a wide range of venues and
methods--such as staff participation in community parades and at swearing
in ceremonies for new citizens--to conduct voter registration outreach to
the language minority community. In addition to these outreach activities,
representatives of most election offices also reported offering bilingual
voter registration assistance to individuals who phoned or visited the
election office. (See table 3 for examples of written and oral bilingual
assistance reportedly provided to assist language minority community
voters with voter registration.)

Table 3: Examples of Bilingual Voter Registration Assistance Reportedly
Provided by Election Offices

Written assistance                                                         
Miami-Dade County, FL, election officials reported providing all voter     
registration applications in English, Spanish, and Creole, though they     
were only required under Section 203 to provide written bilingual voting   
assistance for the Hispanic community.                                     
The Secretary of State produces the Chinese version of the voter           
registration form for residents of King County, WA.^a The translated form  
did not ask registrants whether they would prefer to receive future        
election materials in Chinese, but a King County elections official        
reported assuming that registrants who used a Chinese registration form    
would also want a Chinese ballot.                                          
In Suffolk County, NY, the Board of Elections reportedly conducted         
widespread bilingual information mailings to explain the voter             
registration process to language minority voters 20-30 days prior to       
Election Day.                                                              
Oral assistance                                                            
In Harris County, TX, the Tax Assessor's Office, which is responsible for  
voter registration, told us they had two community outreach staff that     
conducted voter outreach to various Hispanic and Vietnamese CBOs, attended 
community events to encourage people to register to vote, and selected     
deputies within the language communities to register voters.               
Election officials in Los Angeles County, CA, reported having a            
multilingual phone line with live bilingual staff 2 weeks prior to major   
elections and a language line translator during non-election season.       
In Sandoval County, NM, one election official believed the most effective  
form of bilingual voter registration outreach to Native American           
communities was staff attendance at Native American events and visits to   
individual voters' homes. Sandoval County, NM, election officials also     
reported speaking to Tribal Councils of the Pueblos and the Navajo         
Chapters.                                                                  

Source: GAO analysis of responses from election officials.

^aAn example of Washington State's Chinese voter registration form is
provided in appendix IV.

  Bilingual Absentee and Early Voting Assistance Reported by Jurisdictions

Election officials in 13 of the 14 jurisdictions included in our study
reported providing some form of bilingual voting assistance for absentee
and/or early voting.^19 The most common type of assistance (12
jurisdictions) was bilingual ballots or separate translated ballots for
absentee or early voters. Other types of assistance provided by varying
numbers of jurisdictions included bilingual or separate translated
absentee voter registration forms; sample ballots and voting instructions;
bilingual phone assistance; bilingual in-office assistance; and bilingual
poll workers at early voting locations. (See table 4 for examples of
written and oral bilingual assistance reportedly provided to minority
language absentee and early voters.)

^19All 14 of the election offices we contacted reported offering eligible
voters an absentee voting option and 9 of the 14 election offices reported
offering an early voting option.

Table 4: Examples of Bilingual Absentee and Early Voting Assistance
Reportedly Provided by Election Offices

Written assistance                                                         
City of Boston election officials reported providing English-Spanish       
bilingual absentee ballots.                                                
Orange County, CA, election officials reported mailing translated sample   
ballots to language minority absentee voters before mailing official paper 
ballots. Orange County, CA, election officials also reported that          
bilingual voting signs and instructions were posted at each early voting   
site in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese.                          
Bilingual absentee ballot request forms in King County, WA, allowed        
registrants to indicate if they would like to receive future election      
materials in Chinese.^a This feature allowed election officials to         
identify voters desiring bilingual voting assistance.                      
Oral assistance                                                            
Los Angeles County, CA, election officials reported having bilingual poll  
workers at 17 touch screen early voting sites with voting systems in 7     
languages (including English).                                             
A Jackson County, SD, election official reported offering Lakota^b audio   
assistance on electronic voting machines 2-3 weeks before the November     
2006 General Election.                                                     
City of Boston election officials reported offering language minority      
voters bilingual absentee voting assistance if they called the Boston      
Election Department's telephone line or walked into the office. These      
officials also reported working with staff in elderly housing communities  
to help them provide assistance to elderly voters who were disabled, ill,  
or otherwise not able to vote on Election Day.                             

Source: GAO analysis of responses from election officials.

^aA copy of King County's bilingual absentee ballot request form is
provided in appendix IV.

^bElection officials we met with in South Dakota stated that Lakota was not
historically a written language. However, two community leaders we met
with noted that written Lakota was being taught in at least some schools.

  Election Day Assistance Reported by Jurisdictions

Election officials in 13 of the 14 jurisdictions reported providing some
type of written and/or oral assistance for language minority voters on
Election Day. As with absentee and early voting assistance, one of the
most common types of written assistance reportedly provided on Election
Day was bilingual ballots or separate translated written ballots, which
were reportedly provided in 12 of the jurisdictions. The most common form
of oral bilingual voting assistance reportedly provided on Election Day
was bilingual poll workers, who were provided in 13 jurisdictions. Two
jurisdictions reportedly provided audio translations for largely unwritten
Native American languages. (See table 5 for examples of written and oral
bilingual assistance reportedly provided on Election Day.)

Table 5: Examples of Bilingual Election Day Assistance Reportedly Provided
by Election Offices

Written assistance                                                         
Miami-Dade County, FL, election officials reported that all ballots        
(absentee ballots, paper, and electronic DRE ballots) were available in    
English, Spanish, and Creole, though they were only required by Section    
203 to provide written assistance for the Hispanic community.              
Montgomery County, MD, election officials reported that all written        
Montgomery County, MD, voting materials (including bilingual sample        
ballots posted in the polling place or booth, bilingual voting             
instructions, bilingual posters at the polling locations, and bilingual "I 
voted" buttons) were bilingual Spanish-English to prevent anyone from      
failing to make the Spanish language materials accessible.                 
King County, WA, election officials reported posting bilingual signs in    
their polling places.^a                                                    
Oral assistance                                                            
In Orange County, CA, election officials reported that poll workers wore a 
badge stating the language he or she spoke and were instructed to actively 
provide bilingual assistance by approaching voters to ask if they need     
assistance.^b                                                              
Cook County, IL, city election officials reported that they had multiple   
phone lines available on Election Day that language minority voters used   
to obtain oral assistance in multiple languages.                           
A Sandoval County, NM, election official reported providing "translation   
tapes" for minority-language voters to listen to before they voted. (In    
addition to Spanish, Sandoval County, NM, election officials reportedly    
provide bilingual voting assistance for speakers of Keresan, Towa, and     
Navajo--languages that are historically unwritten.)                        

Source: GAO analysis of responses from election officials.

^aExamples of bilingual polling place signs reportedly posted in King
County, WA, are provided in appendix IV.

^bExamples of the badges reportedly worn by bilingual poll workers in
Orange County, CA, are provided in appendix IV.

See appendix IV for examples of bilingual materials reportedly available
to voters in some of the locations we visited.

  Bilingual Assistance Reported by Community-Based Organizations

CBOs reported providing various types of bilingual voting assistance in
nine of the jurisdictions included in our study. Seven key types of
assistance that CBOs reported providing were:

           o Informing the language minority community about voting
           (reportedly provided by CBOs in nine jurisdictions);
           o Registering language minority voters (8);
           o Providing assistance to language minority voters on Election Day
           (7);
           o Helping determine the types of bilingual voting assistance
           needed and which voters need it (7);
           o Informing language minority voters about early and/or absentee
           voting (6);
           o Recruiting and training bilingual poll workers (6); and
           o Helping translate or design the bilingual or translated ballot
           (4).

The bilingual voting assistance provided by CBOs generally took one of
three forms: supplementing election office efforts, working with election
offices to provide assistance, or providing assistance that otherwise was
not provided by the election office. For example, some CBO representatives
reported providing types of assistance similar to those offered by
election offices, such as registering language minority citizens to vote
or answering voters' questions. Other CBO representatives reported helping
election officials provide assistance, such as helping to recruit
bilingual poll workers or translating official election materials.
Finally, some CBO representatives reported conducting activities related
to bilingual voting assistance that election officials did not do, such as
employing poll monitors and providing language minority voters with
transportation to the polls on Election Day. Some examples of the specific
activities the 38 CBOs included in our study reported undertaking as part
of their bilingual voting assistance efforts are summarized in table 6.

Table 6: Examples of Bilingual Assistance Reportedly Provided by CBOs

Efforts to supplement bilingual voting assistance provided by election     
offices                                                                    
A CBO serving the Chinese American community in the City of Boston, MA,    
reported holding voter education workshops in local low income housing     
units or community buildings to register people to vote and provide        
information about both the voting process and the bilingual assistance     
available.                                                                 
A CBO serving the Spanish-speaking community in Montgomery County, MD,     
reported conducting significant media outreach, including partnering with  
a Spanish radio station to promote voter registration and hosting press    
conferences and events to attract Spanish language media and all local     
television and major newspapers' attention to voter education.             
One Los Angeles County, CA, CBO serving the Asian American community       
reported hosting a toll-free hotline to take calls and answer questions    
from prospective voters around Election Day. According to CBO              
representatives, most of the calls to the phone line were in Mandarin and  
many calls were from citizens who had not voted before.                    
Efforts to collaborate with election offices in providing assistance       
In King County, WA, representatives of a coalition of CBOs serving the     
Chinese American community reported being very involved in recruiting      
bilingual poll workers. They reported sending out e-mails and soliciting   
volunteers. The coalition also reported organizing a phone survey of       
bilingual poll workers to learn about their experience on Election Day.    
They then used this information to create a video used to train poll       
workers.                                                                   
One representative of a CBO in Harris County, TX, reported reviewing and   
commenting on the accuracy of a demographic map that county election       
officials used to determine where to target resources.                     
Representatives of various Asian American CBOs in Cook County, IL,         
reported that they translated election materials in the past but the       
demand became overwhelming. Thus, the election office started using a      
private company for the translations or did the translations itself.       
However, these CBOs reported that they still occasionally checked          
translations and provided the election office with feedback on             
transliteration.                                                           
Efforts to provide assistance not otherwise provided by the election       
office                                                                     
A representative with one CBO reported monitoring around 50-100 polling    
sites in Los Angeles County, CA, for the November 2006 election. This CBO  
compiled poll monitoring reports, sent them to election officials, and     
walked through these reports with election officials at post-election      
debrief meetings.                                                          
A CBO representing the Filipino community in Los Angeles County, CA,       
reportedly provided voters with transportation to the polls because some   
polling places were difficult to locate and not convenient to public       
transportation.                                                            

Source: GAO analysis of responses from CBO representatives.

Jurisdictions Reported Using Various Strategies to Implement Their Bilingual
Voting Assistance Programs

Election officials in jurisdictions included in our review reported using
varying strategies to implement their bilingual voting assistance
programs. These strategies included combinations of (1) employing
bilingual voting assistance coordinators; (2) working with CBOs; (3)
recruiting bilingual poll workers; (4) determining where to target^20
their bilingual voting assistance programs; and (5) conducting outreach to
the language minority community. The range of election office strategies
may be due in part to the flexibility of the guidance that the DOJ Civil
Rights Division provides to help covered jurisdictions address the
requirements of Section 203, as the guidance places the responsibility of
determining how best to provide the required assistance with the
individual jurisdictions. DOJ states that its guidance is intentionally
flexible because the needs and preferences of language minority
communities vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This flexibility
allows election offices to tailor their programs to try to meet their
jurisdiction's unique needs.

^20"Targeting" refers to a system in which the minority language materials
or assistance are provided to fewer than all persons or registered voters.
It is the view of the U.S. Attorney General that a targeting system will
normally fulfill the minority language requirements if it is designed and
implemented in such a way that language minority group members who need
minority language materials and assistance receive them.

  Nine Jurisdictions Employed Bilingual Voting Assistance Coordinators

Election officials in nine of the jurisdictions included in our study
reported that they employed dedicated coordinators to manage their
bilingual voting assistance programs. Officials in two of these offices
noted that employing a bilingual voting assistance coordinator who was
familiar with the demographics of the local language minority communities
was particularly helpful in effectively determining where to target their
bilingual voting assistance. In addition, election offices in four of the
six jurisdictions that were required to provide assistance in more than
one language reported having at least one designated staff for each
covered language minority group. For example, the Orange County, Calif.,
registrar of voters reported having one or two bilingual "community
program specialists" devoted to bilingual voting assistance in each of its
covered languages--Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

  Most Jurisdictions We Contacted Worked with Community-Based Organizations but
  Differed in Their Approach and Extent of Activities

Election officials in 10 of the 14 jurisdictions reported that they worked
with CBOs in providing bilingual voting assistance. Of these, officials in
seven reported having formal election advisory committees or task forces
that included CBO representatives. Election officials reported that some
of these advisory committees provided input such as feedback on elections,
comments on translated election materials, and suggestions for targeting
bilingual voting assistance. For example, in King County, Wash., the
election office reportedly received guidance and assistance from a
"Section 203 Community Coalition," which was comprised of five CBOs
representing the Chinese community. According to coalition members, the
coalition worked closely with the election office, meeting as often as
twice a month. In one example of their collaboration, King County's
"Section 203 Community Coalition" reportedly introduced the idea of
conducting surname analysis to identify Chinese-speaking potential voters
and then mail the identified individuals a postcard notifying them about
bilingual voting assistance and encouraging them to return the postcard to
the King County Elections Department if they would like to receive future
elections materials in Chinese. The coalition conducted the analysis, the
county paid for the mailing, and both parties told us it was a very
successful collaborative effort.

The three elections offices that reported working with CBOs but did not
report having formal advisory committees reportedly worked with CBOs in
other ways. For example, Seward County, Kans., election officials reported
working with CBOs on voter outreach to minority language voters by
distributing bilingual voter registration cards. Similarly, Suffolk
County, N.Y., election officials reported working and communicating
regularly with a network of CBOs to disseminate election information to
language minority voters through churches, community centers, and
households. Suffolk County election officials stated that their
relationships with CBOs were very helpful because they facilitated voter
outreach and expanded the Bureau of Elections' access to people in the
language minority community.

  Most Jurisdictions We Contacted Had Bilingual Poll Workers and Used Multiple
  Methods to Recruit Them

Election officials in 13 jurisdictions we contacted reported recruiting
bilingual poll workers through a combination of efforts. These efforts
included: (1) contacting CBOs and language minority media, (2) posting
recruitment materials in language minority neighborhoods, (3) contacting
potential poll workers directly, (4) recruiting from the public and
private sector employers, and (5) conducting direct mailings. According to
officials in nine jurisdictions, one method of recruiting bilingual poll
workers was communication with representatives of CBOs or the minority
community who facilitated contacting and recruiting bilingual poll
workers. In addition, election officials in some jurisdictions reported
using language minority media such as in-language radio, television, and
newspapers to encourage members of the language minority community to
serve as bilingual poll workers. For example, an election official in King
County, Wash., reported success with a televised public service
announcement featuring a Chinese American former Governor of Washington
State encouraging other Chinese Americans to volunteer as bilingual poll
workers. Five elections offices reported posting signs in language
minority neighborhoods--in schools, libraries, stores, and civic
associations--to recruit bilingual poll workers. In the City of Los
Angeles, election officials reported posting signs in ethnic grocery
stores in language minority neighborhoods to recruit bilingual poll
workers. Election officials in five jurisdictions also reported recruiting
bilingual poll workers through in-person contact with potential applicants
at language minority community events, through e-mail messages, and by
making targeted phone calls. Other jurisdictions reported more success in
recruiting either high school or college students to be bilingual poll
workers than did those who tried recruiting bilingual poll workers from
the private sector. Representatives of several election offices reported
supplementing these efforts by recruiting local government employees to be
bilingual poll workers. Finally, in three of the election offices we
contacted, officials stated that direct mailings were used to recruit
bilingual poll workers.

  Jurisdictions' Targeting of Bilingual Voting Assistance Efforts Involved a
  Combination of Approaches

To determine where to target their bilingual voting assistance efforts,
election officials in many of the jurisdictions we contacted reported
using some combination of surname analysis, reviews of U.S. Census Bureau
and other demographic data, input from CBOs, and analysis of voter
requests for bilingual voting information. Specifically, these efforts
included the following:

           o Analyzing surnames: Election officials in eight jurisdictions
           reported using surname analysis to try to identify those areas
           within a jurisdiction that contain a higher concentration of
           voting age citizens with surnames indicative of the covered
           minority language. A few election officials stated that surname
           analysis was most helpful in identifying language minority
           individuals in largely homogeneous communities or in identifying
           neighborhoods that were undergoing demographic transitions and
           experiencing an influx of new language minority communities. Other
           election officials reported that although surname analysis may not
           have been an accurate tool, it was an approach prescribed in a
           legal agreement negotiated with the DOJ Civil Rights Division. As
           a result, officials chose to use surname analysis, but in
           combination with other targeting approaches. Officials with the
           DOJ Civil Rights Division noted that in many of the agreements
           reached between the Civil Rights Division and local election
           officials, surname analysis was used--in the absence of other
           reliable data--as a starting point for determining appropriate
           sites for bilingual poll workers.

           o Analyzing demographic data: Election officials in some
           jurisdictions reported using demographic data and information from
           the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources to identify language
           minority communities within their jurisdictions. For example, due
           to concerns that surname analysis alone was not allowing them to
           effectively target assistance, election officials in Harris
           County, Tex., told us they hired a contractor to use Census data
           to identify areas with population concentrations of language
           minority individuals within their jurisdiction. Election officials
           in Montgomery County, Md., reported using a combination of Census
           data and other data sources such as demographic statistics on
           students in the jurisdiction's public school system to target
           those precincts with the greatest need for bilingual voting
           assistance.

           o Obtaining input from CBOs: Election officials in nine
           jurisdictions reported obtaining input from CBOs to better target
           their bilingual voting assistance programs. Officials in seven of
           the election offices we contacted reported seeking targeting
           guidance from their language minority advisory committees. For
           example, an election official in Montgomery County, Md., reported
           that their multicultural outreach committee has been very helpful
           in identifying which voters need bilingual voting assistance, the
           types of assistance to be provided, and at which precincts
           assistance needs to be provided. In Los Angeles County, Calif.,
           election officials stated that they obtained input from CBOs as
           part of their systematic targeting process to identify precincts
           that may need bilingual voting assistance--if a community partner
           organization indicated that a neighborhood should be targeted for
           a particular language, the polling places in that neighborhood
           were considered "targeted."

           o Analyzing voter requests: Officials in four election offices
           reported utilizing records of past voter requests for or use of
           bilingual voting assistance to target future bilingual voting
           assistance efforts. For example, some officials reported
           collecting data on requests for bilingual assistance noted on
           voter registration cards, absentee ballot request forms, and phone
           calls to the elections office. In addition, election officials in
           three jurisdictions reported asking poll workers to record the
           number of requests for bilingual voting assistance on Election
           Day. Election officials in Los Angeles County, Calif., for
           example, reported that they tracked requests for language
           assistance by precinct and had poll workers use a "multilingual
           tally card" to keep track of the numbers of voters requesting
           language assistance on Election Day. (An example of a multilingual
           tally card used in Los Angeles County is provided in app. IV.)
           Election officials in five jurisdictions, however, stated that
           they did not or could not track voter requests for assistance. For
           example, Seward County, Kans., election officials stated that
           Kansas state law forbids the election office from tracking
           individuals' requests for bilingual voting assistance. Similarly,
           an election official in Montgomery County, Md., reported that due
           to personal privacy concerns, the county did not track usage of
           bilingual voting assistance. Election officials in Harris County,
           Tex., noted that their state-issued voter registration forms did
           not have a place for registrants to indicate their preferred
           language; therefore, it was not possible for the local
           jurisdictions to track requests for assistance using voter
           registration forms.

  Most Jurisdictions Conducted Outreach but Reportedly Used Diverse Methods to
  Engage Language Minority Communities

Election officials in 13 jurisdictions told us that they used various
strategies to reach out to language minority voters to inform them of the
availability of bilingual voting assistance and to educate them about the
election process. These strategies included working with CBOs; using
ethnic media outlets; conducting in-person contacts; and posting bilingual
voting information on the Internet. Specifically, these efforts included
the following:

           o Working with CBOs: Election officials in nine jurisdictions
           reported working with representatives of CBOs to conduct bilingual
           outreach and voter education. For example, Suffolk County, N.Y.,
           election officials stated that they worked closely with the
           network of organizations active in their language minority
           communities to disseminate election information to churches,
           community centers, and households in their efforts to reach
           language minority voters. Election officials in the City of Boston
           reported that they communicated regularly with the CBO
           representatives that participate in the city's Voter Outreach and
           Education Task Force, and that the CBOs played an active,
           necessary role in disseminating bilingual voting assistance
           information. Similarly, election officials in King County, Wash.,
           reported that CBOs provided substantial amounts of outreach,
           workshops, and seminars informing and educating language
           minorities of the availability of election materials and how to
           use the new voting system implemented in the jurisdiction.

           o Using media outlets: Jurisdictions reported using a variety of
           media outlets to conduct bilingual outreach and voter education.
           Election officials in most of the jurisdictions included in our
           study reported using print media, radio or televised public
           service announcements to conduct bilingual outreach, and the types
           of media used sometimes varied among the targeted language
           minority communities. For example, election officials in Orange
           County, Calif., reported using Spanish-speaking television
           stations to target information to the Latino community but that
           using Vietnamese radio stations and newspapers were more effective
           for reaching the Vietnamese community. Election officials in the
           City of Boston reported that they worked with the Ethnic Media
           Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts to determine
           what ethnic media outlets were most used by the language minority
           community in their jurisdiction. Finally, election officials in
           six jurisdictions also reported using targeted translated mailings
           to inform the covered language minority community about election
           processes and important voter information. These included
           translated voter registration forms, sample ballots, and voting
           instructions.

           o Using in-person contact: Election officials in 11 jurisdictions
           reported using in-person contact with the language minority
           community as another means to inform targeted individuals about
           the availability of bilingual voting assistance and to educate
           them on election processes. For example, election officials for
           the City of Boston reported that in-person contact was the most
           effective outreach method in their jurisdiction. As a result,
           their staff attended and registered voters at language minority
           community forums and swearing-in ceremonies for new citizens.
           Election officials in other jurisdictions also reported that they
           visited language minority community events or locations such as
           festivals and libraries to conduct voter outreach and education.
           For example, an election official in King County, Wash., stated
           that she participated in voter education forums held by a CBO to
           talk through the voter's pamphlet with Chinese-speaking voters,
           provide instructions on how to fill out the ballot, and encourage
           participants to share their knowledge with others in the language
           minority community.

           o Posting information on the Internet: Officials in 11 of the
           election offices we contacted reported posting bilingual voting
           assistance materials and information on their websites, though to
           varying extents. For example, election officials in Harris County,
           Tex., told us they translated aspects of their Web site to provide
           language minority individuals with essential voting information,
           including important dates, early voting and Election Day
           information, sample ballots, and information on how to operate the
           jurisdiction's voting system. In contrast, Orange County, Calif.,
           election officials reported that nearly all of the web content
           provided in English is available in each of the four covered
           languages. Los Angeles County, Calif., election officials reported
           focusing their Web site's language content on frequently utilized
           materials while working to make more election procedures available
           in the county's required minority languages.

All 14 Jurisdictions Reported Challenges in Providing Bilingual Voting
Assistance

All 14 jurisdictions we contacted reported experiencing challenges in
providing bilingual assistance, with the key challenges related to: (1)
recruiting and ensuring quality performance of bilingual poll workers, (2)
targeting bilingual voting assistance, (3) designing and translating
bilingual voting assistance materials, and (4) allocating sufficient
resources to bilingual voting assistance. In addition to identifying these
key challenges, officials in nine jurisdictions expressed a desire for
more guidance or assistance on providing bilingual voting assistance.

  Many Jurisdictions Reported Difficulties Recruiting Bilingual Poll Workers and
  with Bilingual Poll Worker Performance

Election officials in nine of the jurisdictions stated that they had
difficulty recruiting bilingual poll workers for a variety of reasons. For
example, five jurisdictions reported that recruiting was difficult because
of the long hours and minimal pay provided to bilingual poll workers--they
believed that many individuals in the language minority communities had
multiple jobs and could not afford to commit to the long hours required of
a bilingual poll worker on Election Day. Election officials in five
jurisdictions also added that it was a challenge to recruit bilingual poll
workers who were willing to serve at a polling place outside their home
precinct. In their experience, some bilingual poll workers either did not
have the means to travel to other polling sites or were reluctant to do
so. In addition, demographic shifts in some jurisdictions reportedly
created recruiting challenges. For example, representatives of four
election offices stated that recruiting was especially challenging for new
language minority communities with only a very limited pool of potential
bilingual volunteers or when members of the language minority community
that are fluent in the covered language are decreasing in numbers due to
aging. In one jurisdiction, an election official reported that some voters
who reside in areas that are not historically language minority
communities do not want to be identified as language minority speakers;
therefore, they hesitate to volunteer.

In addition to recruiting problems, representatives of election offices
from two jurisdictions reported that they experienced challenges related
to bilingual poll worker performance. For example, election officials in
Los Angeles County, Calif., stated that, in their experience, the
performance of bilingual poll workers has been adversely affected by poor
treatment by other poll workers that did not recognize the importance of
providing bilingual voting assistance. Election officials in this
jurisdiction also stated that CBOs have complained in the past that some
of the bilingual poll workers were unwilling to assist language minority
voters due to differences in their personal and cultural backgrounds,
noting that acculturating new bilingual poll workers into the election
environment was an issue they needed to address. In addition, election
officials in this jurisdiction mentioned that while cultural sensitivity
and diversity training was included in their general poll worker training,
it was very difficult to spend sufficient time on the topic when there was
a great deal of material to cover during the brief poll worker training
time available. Similarly, election officials in the City of Boston
reported difficulty managing some veteran poll workers who were reticent
to use the training associated with the bilingual voting aspects of their
job. According to these officials, expanding the length of training to
address these issues has not been an option because trainees' attention to
the material covered was limited to a certain amount of time, attendance
is not required, and it could increase costs associated with the training.

  Some Jurisdictions Reported Difficulties Targeting Those Voters Who Needed
  Bilingual Voting Assistance

Election officials in eight of the jurisdictions we contacted reported
that limitations in surname analysis, U.S. Census Bureau data, or
demographic shifts in their jurisdictions made it difficult to effectively
target bilingual voting assistance. Election officials in several
jurisdictions reported that surname analysis did not accurately indicate
whether individuals were actually limited-English proficient or proficient
in the covered language, and added that surname analysis may overstate the
need for bilingual assistance in particular precincts. Election officials
in Los Angeles County, Calif., also noted that surname analysis was not
useful in jurisdictions containing multiple language minority groups,
especially those with many overlapping surnames. For example, these
officials reported that it was very difficult to correctly distinguish
between members of the Filipino and Spanish-speaking communities using
surname analysis because Filipino surnames overlap with Spanish surnames.

Election officials in some jurisdictions also asserted that U.S. Census
Bureau data are not accurate or detailed enough to enable them to
effectively target language minority voters or, in some cases, determine
the precise dialect a covered language minority community speaks. For
example, Suffolk County, N.Y., election officials reported that they have
had challenges targeting language minority individuals who are eligible to
register and vote due to the number of undocumented persons included in
Census data who are not registered to vote. In addition, election
officials for Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, explained that while the
Census data identified the jurisdiction as requiring bilingual voting
assistance in American Indian and Aleut languages, it is not clear what
specific languages or dialects officials should target.^21 Some election
officials also explained that targeting bilingual voting assistance can be
more difficult when the language minority communities are not concentrated
in discrete geographic areas within the jurisdiction. For example, Los
Angeles County, Calif., election officials reported that the diversity of
the county's population and its constant demographic shifts require their
office to modify their targeted precincts every 2 years, whereas Census
data for jurisdictions covered under Section 203 are currently updated
every 10 years.

^21Aleut is one branch of the Eskimo-Aleut language family and has
multiple dialects.

  Many Jurisdictions Reported Difficulties Designing or Translating Bilingual
  Voting Assistance Materials

Election officials in nine jurisdictions reported difficulties designing
or translating their bilingual voting assistance materials. Election
officials reported that translating ballot language was particularly
challenging because of differences in the meanings of words in various
dialects of a given language or difficulties finding comparable phrasing
in the covered language. Some election officials reported that this
challenge was exacerbated by the limited time they had to review and
correct errors before printing and distributing the election materials.
For example, election officials in Montgomery County, Md., reported that
they operated under short time frames with the vendors that produced their
materials and had just 7 days to proof the ballot layout, design,
spelling, audio pronunciation, touch screen text, and optical scan text
before the materials had to be printed. In addition, some election
officials noted that a translated ballot in a minority language is often
longer than the English version--this difference in text length made it
difficult to design a user-friendly bilingual ballot.

  Some Jurisdictions Reported Difficulty Allocating Sufficient Resources to
  Their Bilingual Voting Assistance Efforts

Election officials in 11 jurisdictions reported that they had difficulty
allocating either sufficient staff or financial resources to their
bilingual voting assistance efforts. Election officials in five
jurisdictions stated that additional staff would allow them to more
effectively conduct outreach to the language minority communities. For
example, an election official from Miami-Dade County, Fla., stated that
having limited staff available to send to language minority communities
has made it more difficult to educate language minority voters about the
election process. Additionally, election officials in two jurisdictions
stated that having sufficient staff would allow them to more effectively
translate and review the written and oral assistance provided. In
Montgomery County, Md., election officials reported that they rely heavily
on unpaid community volunteers but with additional funding the county
could conduct more outreach activities.

  Many Election Officials We Contacted Desired Additional Guidance and
  Information on Providing Bilingual Assistance

Although officials in 12 jurisdictions reported receiving some degree of
guidance or assistance from DOJ or other sources, officials in 9
jurisdictions also reported that more guidance or assistance may be
helpful. For example, election officials in the City of Boston stated that
they received some assistance from DOJ in the past, but that additional
guidance and greater coordination among jurisdictions that provide
bilingual voting assistance would also be beneficial. These officials told
us they had taken the initiative to communicate with other covered
jurisdictions to learn about their approaches to providing bilingual
voting assistance but believed that a more organized system for
information sharing between jurisdictions would be useful. These same
views were echoed by election officials participating in discussion
sessions we held on bilingual voting assistance during two national
election conferences on election issues sponsored by the Election Center
in 2007. Specifically, in both discussion sessions, several election
officials noted that additional guidance and greater coordination among
jurisdictions that provide bilingual voting assistance would be
beneficial. In addition, an official from a jurisdiction included in our
study stated that the Secretary of State's Office and DOJ had offered
assistance, but little to none had been received. Election officials in
five jurisdictions that reported receiving guidance or assistance from DOJ
stated that some of the assistance was not helpful, accurate, or reliable.
Officials with the DOJ Civil Rights Division stated that their office
offers guidance and assistance to local election officials on how to
comply with Section 203, but it is the responsibility of covered
jurisdictions to determine what languages, forms of languages, or dialects
will be effective in their jurisdictions. Furthermore, these officials
stated that its guidance is intentionally flexible because election
systems and the circumstances of language minority communities vary widely
across the United States. Instead, DOJ states that it provides guiding
principles and practical suggestions for election officials to use. DOJ
officials also noted that they have taken steps to make covered
jurisdictions aware of this guidance, including conducting in-person
visits with newly-covered jurisdictions as well as making presentations to
state and local election officials through national groups and
associations.

  The U.S. Election Assistance Commission Has Taken Recent Steps to Provide
  Additional Guidance and Information to Jurisdictions on Providing Bilingual
  Assistance

The EAC has taken steps to provide guidance on bilingual voting assistance
as part of its responsibilities under HAVA to serve as a national
clearinghouse and resource for information with respect to the
administration of federal elections. For example, the EAC formed a
Language Accessibility Program that has taken steps to provide
recommendations and tools to election officials on providing bilingual
voting assistance. In April 2007, the EAC published English-to-Spanish and
Spanish-to-English versions of a glossary of over 1,800 election terms and
phrases used in the administration of elections. The glossary was designed
to assist state and local election officials in providing translated
election materials that are culturally and linguistically appropriate. In
addition, in September 2007, the EAC awarded a contract to translate this
glossary into five additional languages covered under Section 203:
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, and Vietnamese, with an anticipated
glossary publication date of May 2008. The EAC also issued two guidebooks
on recruiting and training poll workers that included suggestions on
serving the needs of language minority voters. For example, one of the
guidebooks included a section on partnering with civic organizations to
recruit bilingual poll workers, and the other guidebook included a chapter
on recruiting bilingual college students to serve as poll workers.

In addition to its completed publications, the EAC has other assistance
efforts planned in response to recent concerns voiced by election
officials to the EAC regarding the need for additional guidance and
information on providing bilingual assistance. For example, the EAC plans
to dedicate a future chapter of its set of Election Management Guidelines
to the topic of language accessibility. EAC officials reported that this
language accessibility chapter (and accompanying brochure) will address
strategies for election officials to consider and implement when providing
elections services to voters with limited English proficiency throughout
the election process. The EAC plans to develop this guidance by consulting
election officials and professionals with first-hand experience managing
elections in order to identify and develop the key content the
publications should address. EAC officials noted that this process should
begin in April 2008, and final publications should be released to the
public by the end of that year. After its initial set of Election
Management Guidelines has been completed, the EAC plans to regularly
assess the need to cover other topic areas and update previous materials
to maintain current and relevant information in the guidelines.

Some Forms of Bilingual Voting Assistance Were Perceived as More Useful than
Others, but Formally Evaluating Its Usefulness Presented Many Challenges

Although we identified little data measuring the usefulness of various
types of bilingual voting assistance, election officials in eight
jurisdictions and CBO representatives in seven jurisdictions in our study
told us that they believed certain forms of assistance were more useful
than others. In addition, none of the jurisdictions had formally evaluated
the effectiveness of their bilingual voting assistance programs, although
most had used some means of gathering information about elements of the
assistance provided. Election officials in 10 jurisdictions and CBO
representatives in 9 jurisdictions also stated that modifications could be
made that would improve the usefulness of the bilingual services provided
to voters. While the use of formal program evaluation tools has proven to
be a successful means for federal agencies to improve program
effectiveness, accountability, and service delivery,^22 conducting formal
evaluations of the usefulness and effect of bilingual voting assistance is
difficult for a variety of reasons. Three key difficulties include (1)
identifying the objectives and appropriate indicators of success, (2)
determining how to measure these indicators once they have been
identified, and (3) isolating the effects of bilingual voting assistance
efforts on language minority voters from more general voter outreach
efforts or other influences on election processes.

^22GAO, Results-Oriented Government: GPRA Has Established a Solid
Foundation for Achieving Greater Results, [50]GAO-04-38 (Washington, D.C.:
Mar. 10, 2004).

Certain Types of Assistance Were Viewed as More Useful than Others

Although the election jurisdictions and CBOs we met with had not conducted
any formal evaluations of the bilingual assistance they provided, the
majority of both believed that the assistance that the election offices
provided was useful to language minority voters. Specifically, election
officials we met with in 12 of 14 jurisdictions and leaders of CBOs in 10
of 11 jurisdictions believed that the bilingual voting assistance provided
by the election offices was useful to language minority voters and helped
improve their participation in the voting process. However, some types of
bilingual assistance were viewed as more useful than others. (See table 7
for the types of bilingual voting assistance identified as most useful.)

Table 7: Most Useful Types of Bilingual Voting Assistance, as Reported by
Election Officials and CBO Representatives

                              Number of jurisdictions Number of jurisdictions 
                                    in which election            in which CBO 
Type of bilingual voting  officials viewed this as  representatives viewed 
assistance provided by     the most useful type of  this as the mostuseful 
the election office                     assistance      type of assistance 
Bilingual poll workers                           6                       5 
Translated voting                                                          
materials (i.e., voter                                                     
guides, registration                                                       
forms, sample ballots,                                                     
ballots)                                         4                       6 
Community outreach and                                                     
education activities                             2                       3 
Media in-language (i.e.,                                                   
newspapers, tv, radio,                                                     
mailings)                                        2                       2 
Web site                                         2                       0 
Translated polling place                                                   
signage                                          1                       0 
All forms of bilingual                                                     
assistance                                       1                       0 
Designated bilingual                                                       
coordinator                                      0                       3 
Use of community                                                           
advisory committees                              0                       2 
Voting machines                                                            
bilingual ballots                                0                       2 
Phone assistance to                                                        
intermediaries on behalf                                                   
of language minority                                                       
voters                                           0                       1 

Source: GAO analysis of responses from election officials and CBO
representatives.

Note: Officials may have designated more than one type of assistance as
most useful. Election officials and CBO representatives may be in the same
jurisdiction.

Both election officials and CBO representatives generally agreed that
having bilingual poll workers available on Election Day was among the most
useful forms of assistance to voters. As noted above, election officials
and CBO representatives in some jurisdictions also believed that having
translated written materials was among the most useful forms of
assistance. For example, a CBO representative in Harris County, Tex., told
us that having bilingual voting guides, sample ballots, and other election
materials was more useful to voters than having bilingual poll workers
available on Election Day. He explained that members of the community
preferred to have translated written materials that they could study in
their homes and discuss with family members prior to the election rather
than waiting to get assistance from bilingual poll workers on Election
Day.

In limited instances, bilingual voting assistance was not viewed as
useful. In two jurisdictions, the limited use of the bilingual voting
assistance by voters led election officials to question its usefulness.
For example, officials with the Harris County, Tex., tax assessor's office
(which is responsible for voter registration in the county) provided us
with some data that indicated a low usage of translated voter registration
applications. During calendar year 2006 and through June 2007, the office
distributed roughly 97,000 voter registration applications in Vietnamese
and roughly 173,000 in Spanish by placing them at branches of the tax
assessor's office, public libraries, and Texas Department of Public Safety
locations, as well as distributing them during community outreach events.
However, the office received back only 2 of the Vietnamese and 309 of the
Spanish registration applications. While the officials did not speculate
as to the reasons for the low usage of the translated forms, they noted
that since they are required to provide the forms in both languages they
would continue doing so. CBO representatives in two jurisdictions also
told us that they did not believe that the bilingual voting assistance
provided by the election offices was always useful. For example, a CBO
representative in Jackson County, S. Dak., noted that bilingual voting
assistance was not needed because about 95 percent of people in the
covered language group can read and understand English. This opinion was
also similar to that of a group of senior citizen Filipino voters we met
with through a CBO in Los Angeles County, Calif. These voters had mixed
views on the usefulness of the bilingual voting assistance they received.
Some of these voters indicated that the quality of the translated ballots
was poor; therefore, they instead voted using the English version of the
ballots. However, these voters also noted that Filipinos generally know
how to read and speak English; thus, the assistance was not necessary.
Yet, these voters also wanted the same benefits (i.e., translated election
materials) provided to them that other language minority groups received
under Section 203.

Election officials and CBO representatives in some jurisdictions stated
that modifications could be made that would improve the usefulness of the
bilingual assistance currently provided to language minority voters. For
example, election officials in four jurisdictions and CBO representatives
in nine jurisdictions believed that the usefulness of bilingual voting
assistance provided by the election office could be improved through
additional community outreach and education efforts. Election officials in
five jurisdictions and CBO representatives in six jurisdictions noted that
improvements in the translation of bilingual voting materials would
improve their usefulness to language minority voters. Finally, election
officials in three jurisdictions and CBO representatives in seven
jurisdictions believed that improvements in the recruiting and training of
bilingual poll workers would improve the usefulness of bilingual voting
assistance. (See table 8 for a list of specific suggestions from election
officials and CBO representatives for improving the usefulness of
bilingual voting assistance.)

Table 8: Suggestions on How Election Offices Can Improve the Usefulness of
Bilingual Voting Assistance, according to Election Officials and CBO
Representatives

Community outreach and education                                           
      o Following-up on community outreach events to determine their impact   
      (i.e., whether new voters registered).                                  
      o Seeking additional members of the language community for              
      participation in advisory committees.                                   
      o Having community leaders volunteer to work in election offices to     
      better understand the election process.                                 
      o Surveying or otherwise soliciting feedback from language minority     
      voters about the bilingual assistance they received.                    
      o Placing more public service announcements about the election process  
      in language media (i.e., radio, tv, or newspapers).                     
      o Hiring more permanent bilingual staff.                                
      o Issuing bilingual voting guides.                                      
      o Providing financial assistance to CBOs so that they could provide     
      additional bilingual voting assistance.                                 
      o Using high-profile spokespeople to raise awareness of the importance  
      of voting among language minority voters.                               
      o Having dedicated phone lines, answered in-language, to provide        
      assistance or information about voting to language minority voters.     
Translating election materials                                             
      o Ensuring that all materials are translated.                           
      o Placing additional translated materials on election office Web sites. 
      o Using bilingual ballots versus separate translated ballots.           
      o Translating candidate debates and forums as well as materials into    
      the covered language.                                                   
      o Asking members of the language minority community to proofread        
      translations.                                                           
      o Providing audio ballots in the covered language.                      
      o Tracking voter language preferences (via registration forms) to       
      provide mailings in the preferred language.                             
      o Using standardized translated terms.                                  
      o Working with the language minority community to identify specific     
      dialects of a language that are needed, if any.                         
Recruiting, training, and placing bilingual poll workers                   
      o Hiring additional bilingual poll workers.                             
      o Ensuring bilingual poll workers are placed at the polling places that 
      need them.                                                              
      o Improving poll worker training to emphasize bilingual assistance as a 
      regular part of doing business.                                         
      o Reducing bilingual poll worker training class size to allow more      
      in-depth discussions.                                                   
      o Increasing oversight of bilingual poll workers to ensure they are     
      actually providing assistance.                                          
      o Having bilingual poll workers wear name tags--in the relevant         
      language--to identify the language they speak.                          
      o Asking CBOs to assist with conducting poll worker training.           
      o Recruiting bilingual poll workers from the business community.        
      o Using bilingual city employees as poll workers.                       
      o Increasing poll worker pay.                                           

Source: GAO analysis of responses from election officials and CBO
representatives.

Some Election Officials and Community-Based Organization Representatives
Attempted to Measure Aspects of Bilingual Assistance

None of the jurisdictions we included in our study had formally evaluated
the effectiveness of their bilingual voting assistance programs, although
most had used some means of gathering information about the assistance
provided.^23 Election officials in two jurisdictions told us that formal
evaluations of their bilingual voting assistance programs were
unnecessary, since even if they discovered that voters had not used the
assistance or did not find it useful, the jurisdictions were still
required to provide it. Further, officials in one of these jurisdictions
said it is inappropriate for the jurisdiction to conduct such a study
because of the risk of perceived political motivations to do away with
bilingual voting assistance, as well as the potential for legal action if
the evaluation results were used to try to justify not providing bilingual
voting assistance.

Election officials in 12 of the 14 jurisdictions reported they used
various informal means to get information about the effectiveness of
certain aspects of their bilingual voting assistance programs. For
example, election officials in six jurisdictions told us they used
feedback from voters, community groups, advisory committees, phone calls
to a language telephone hotline, and other public contacts to determine if
the bilingual assistance was useful and whether any modifications were
needed. Election officials in one jurisdiction said their CBO partners
were their "eyes and ears"--providing significant input if the bilingual
voting assistance they provided was not effective or needed improvement.
These officials commented that they believed obtaining feedback from CBOs
was the best way to know how they were doing, and told us that DOJ had
acknowledged that using CBOs for feedback is a good idea. Election
officials in another jurisdiction reported that they reviewed Election Day
call-center logs to determine whether voters or others had reported any
problems related to bilingual voting assistance, and that if any problems
were identified the jurisdiction worked to address them. Election
officials in four jurisdictions reported they had conducted post-election
surveys of or obtained comments from poll workers, either to determine the
number of voters who had used bilingual assistance at the polls on
Election Day or to obtain feedback about election judges' and poll
workers' experiences concerning the assistance provided. Finally, election
officials in two jurisdictions noted that they reviewed changes in the
numbers of language minority voters voting or requesting non-English
ballots to gauge the effectiveness of their efforts.

^23By formal evaluation, we mean a systematic examination of the extent to
which the provided bilingual voting assistance successfully achieved its
intended purpose(s).

Representatives from CBOs in three jurisdictions reported that their
organizations had conducted some type of evaluation of the bilingual
assistance provided by their election jurisdiction in the November 2006
general election or had collected other information about the bilingual
voting assistance provided in their jurisdictions. For example,
representatives of a CBO in one jurisdiction told us they had conducted
exit polling with all voters, not just language minority voters, in the
November 2006 general election. Leaders from CBOs in another jurisdiction
reported conducting focus groups with county leaders, voters, and callers
to a phone bank regarding the usefulness of the bilingual voting
assistance provided in their jurisdiction. In addition, representatives of
a CBO that was involved in two jurisdictions noted that their organization
collected data on Election Day regarding the presence and activity of
bilingual poll workers and the display of translated voting materials in
polling places. Representatives with one CBO told us their method of
evaluation relied on informal feedback from community members.

Conducting Formal Evaluations of the Usefulness and Effect of Bilingual Voting
Assistance Is Difficult

While formal program evaluation tools have proven to be successful means
for federal agencies to improve program effectiveness, accountability, and
service delivery, election offices face many difficult issues in
evaluating the effectiveness, or outcomes, of the bilingual voting
assistance they provide.^24 Among these, three key issues are (1)
identifying the objectives of the bilingual voting assistance program and
criteria for achieving these objectives, (2) determining how to measure
these criteria once they have been identified, and (3) isolating the
effects of the bilingual assistance from other influences on language
minority voters when they vote. (See app. V for a discussion of additional
challenges to evaluating the usefulness of bilingual voting assistance.)

           o Identifying the objectives and criteria: The identification of
           appropriate objectives and criteria for achieving them is basic to
           any evaluation of effectiveness, as an effective program must move
           toward the achievement of an identified purpose. Examples of
           objectives for bilingual assistance could be (1) increased
           language minority voter turnout, (2) increased independence
           demonstrated by language minority voters when voting, and (3)
           language minority voters who are better informed when casting
           their ballots.

           o Determining how the objectives and criteria will be measured:
           Once objectives and criteria have been established, it is then
           necessary to determine how they will be measured. For a number of
           reasons, measuring the effectiveness of bilingual voting
           assistance is difficult. For example, to measure the effectiveness
           of bilingual voting assistance on language minority voter turnout,
           if a jurisdiction keeps records on which voters have indicated
           needing bilingual assistance, poll books can be checked to see
           whether these voters have voted and the numbers of such voters can
           be tracked across elections. However, officials in one
           jurisdiction told us that state law prohibited them from
           indicating either a person's race or their primary language in
           their voter registration records. Additionally, a jurisdiction
           could track the number of ballots printed in a covered language
           that had been used by voters. However, the number of ballots would
           not be a useful measure if both English as well as the covered
           language are printed on the same ballot. Measuring other potential
           indicators could be even more difficult. For example, one
           objective of bilingual voting assistance could be to enable
           language minority voters to cast their ballots independently--for
           example, without the need for someone to accompany them into the
           polling booth to provide language assistance. However, without
           information on the number and percentage of voters who needed
           assistance to cast their ballot prior to the implementation of
           bilingual voting assistance, jurisdictions could not measure the
           effect of the assistance on this indicator accurately.

           o Isolating the effects from other influences: Isolating the
           effects of bilingual assistance on voter behavior would be
           extremely difficult because a number of factors influence voter
           behavior--such as age, party affiliation, or social organizations
           to which voters belong. For example, turnout among Hispanic voters
           could increase in the first election following the implementation
           of bilingual assistance. This same election could feature one or
           more Hispanic candidates on the ballot or one of the candidates
           could have taken a position deemed as "anti-immigrant." It could
           be difficult to determine the contribution of each of these
           factors to the increased Hispanic voter turnout.

           The two general approaches that are often used to help isolate the
           effects, or impact, of a program would be difficult to use in
           evaluating bilingual voting assistance. The first approach
           involves having baseline data--data from the period before a
           program is implemented--along with data collected from the period
           after a program is implemented and comparing the two periods to
           determine whether there are differences in the indicators being
           measured. However, this approach could be very difficult, if not
           impossible, to use because jurisdictions might not have collected
           the relevant data from previous elections. Also, as mentioned
           earlier, unless there is some ability to determine the
           contribution of other factors that might influence voter behavior,
           it could be difficult to determine the specific effect bilingual
           assistance has had.

           The second approach is to have a comparison or control group and
           involves collecting data from a separate group of individuals who
           do not participate in the program but have characteristics similar
           to those who do participate in the program to determine whether
           there are any differences between these groups on the indicators
           being measured. With bilingual voting assistance, this would mean
           collecting data on groups of language minority voters who do not
           receive any bilingual assistance, and comparing the results to
           data collected from language minority voters who received the
           assistance. However, it would be very difficult, if not
           impossible, to keep a control group of language minority voters
           from hearing or seeing pre-election bilingual assistance provided
           through the media. Further, unless conducted in a simulated way,
           such as in a mock election, a jurisdiction covered under Section
           203 seeking to use such a methodology with respect to language
           minority voters would appear to face the additional challenge of
           meeting the Section 203 requirements as well as complying with
           other applicable federal and state voting rights protections.

^24Evaluations of effectiveness, or outcomes, can be distinguished from
process or implementation evaluations, which are designed to assess the
extent to which a program is operating as intended. As we have stated
before, effectiveness evaluations are difficult to design and execute
because optimal conditions for the scientific study of complex social
programs almost never exist. Attributing results to a particular
intervention can be difficult when such programs are evaluated in real
world settings that pose numerous methodological challenges.

Concluding Observations

Most election officials we met with supported providing bilingual voting
assistance and took actions to implement this assistance in their
respective jurisdictions; however, many of them also expressed uncertainty
on how best to assess and meet the needs of language minority voters. DOJ
provides guidance on bilingual assistance under Section 203, and it is
intentionally flexible in nature to allow covered election jurisdictions
to tailor their bilingual voting assistance programs to the specific needs
and resources of their communities. At the same time, this flexibility has
led to uncertainty among election officials as to whether their bilingual
programs are actually meeting requirements or the needs of language
minority voters. Moreover, although we have noted in prior work that
federal agencies have successfully used formal program evaluation tools to
improve federal program effectiveness, accountability, and service
delivery, the methodological difficulties election officials and others
would likely face in trying to formally assess the effectiveness of their
bilingual assistance programs for language minority voters make formal
evaluations of these programs very difficult. As a result, the extent to
which bilingual voting assistance programs are meeting the needs of
language minority voters is unknown.

However, the difficulty in conducting formal evaluations does not mean
that election jurisdictions would not benefit from additional feedback or
information about their own or other jurisdictions' bilingual voting
assistance programs. The EAC's recent efforts to develop and provide
guidance to election jurisdictions regarding the translation of election
terminology and recruiting bilingual poll workers address two of the
challenges we identified in this report. Similarly, the EAC's planned
development of additional management guidelines for election officials on
how to provide bilingual voting assistance might also help jurisdictions
in providing this type of assistance. However, because the specific
content of these management guidelines has yet to be determined, whether
they will provide election officials with the information they seek is
unknown. Nonetheless, while these guidelines may not provide election
officials with feedback about their specific language assistance programs,
making such information available from a central, easily accessible source
could help jurisdictions address challenges they face in determining how
to provide bilingual voting assistance that will be useful to the language
minorities in their communities. Finally, although it is difficult to
evaluate the effect of bilingual assistance, in the absence of better data
on the extent to which the assistance is both used and helpful to voters
with limited-English proficiency, there is likely to continue to be debate
about the merits of bilingual voting assistance.

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this report to DOJ and the EAC for review and
comment. DOJ did not provide comments on the draft of this report but did
provide technical edits, which we incorporated where appropriate.

The EAC provided written comments on December 21, 2007, which are
presented in appendix VI. The EAC presented additional details on its
efforts to provide election officials and the public with information on
bilingual voting assistance.

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional
committees, the Attorney General, the Commissioners of the U.S. Election
Assistance Commission, and other interested parties. In addition, the
report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at
[51]www.gao.gov . Please contact William Jenkins at 202-512-8777 or
[52][email protected] if you or your staff have any questions concerning
this report. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and
Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key
contributors to this report are listed in appendix VII.

William O. Jenkins, Jr.
Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues

List of Congressional Committees

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Arlen Specter: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on the Judiciary: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Robert Bennett: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Rules and Administration: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr.: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Lamar S. Smith: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on the Judiciary: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Robert A. Brady: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Vernon J. Ehlers: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on House Administration: 
House of Representatives: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

This review examined the provision of bilingual voting assistance by
selected jurisdictions covered under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act.
Specifically, our objectives were to provide information on:

           o the ways that selected jurisdictions covered under Section 203
           of the Voting Rights Act have provided bilingual voting assistance
           as of the November 2006 general election, and the challenges they
           reportedly faced in providing such assistance; and
           o the perceived usefulness of this bilingual voting assistance,
           and the extent to which the selected jurisdictions evaluated the
           usefulness of such assistance to language minority voters.

For both objectives, we conducted site visits or obtained information
electronically from 14 selected jurisdictions covered by Section 203.
However, before opting for this approach, we considered other options: (1)
a survey of all 296 covered Section 203 jurisdictions along with a
probability sample of all local government jurisdictions, including
cities, towns, school districts and relevant special districts, contained
within these covered jurisdictions that conduct their own local elections;
and (2) a survey of only the 296 jurisdictions listed in the Federal
Register, an option similar to the methodology we used in our 1997 report.

We chose to focus on the efforts of selected jurisdictions and not to
survey all jurisdictions for several reasons. First, while we had a list
of the 296 jurisdictions covered by Section 203, we were unable to locate
an inventory of the complete population of the sub-jurisdictions contained
within these jurisdictions that conducted their own elections from either
the Department of Justice (DOJ) or the Census Bureau. The Chief of the
Census Bureau office that prepares the determinations for Section 203 of
the Voting Rights Act told us that it might be possible to develop an
inventory of all sub-jurisdictions contained within the 296 covered
jurisdictions through a complicated merge of Census' Topologically
Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) system data files
with its Census of Local Government data files. However, she said the
Census of Local Government data do not indicate whether local governments
hold elections or, if they do, who administers the elections. Therefore,
to identify sub-jurisdictions that conduct their own elections and
contacts within these entities, we would have needed to either canvass
election officials in all 296 counties or other covered areas, as well as
state elections officers, or construct a population of all
sub-jurisdictions from Census Bureau data and then select a probability
sample of sub-jurisdictions to survey and develop our own contact
information. We believed this approach would have been very difficult,
costly, and time consuming. In addition, we learned that prior to
testimony given at the summer 2006 hearings for the reauthorization of the
Voting Rights Act, a team of researchers at the University of Arizona had
already surveyed all 296 jurisdictions listed in the Federal Register, in
addition to hundreds of other jurisdictions, about similar issues.^1 We
were reluctant to resurvey jurisdictions about related matters so soon
thereafter.

For our chosen methodology, we selected a sample of 14 covered
jurisdictions in 12 states. We selected these jurisdictions because they
reflected a variety of characteristics, such as size (i.e., voting age
population), geographic diversity, varying language minority groups and
their size relative to the voting age population, early voting provisions,
and the longevity of each jurisdiction's coverage under the Section 203
bilingual voting provisions; and, we wanted a diverse group of sites to
allow us to report on a wide range of jurisdictions' experiences with
providing bilingual voting assistance. (See table 9 for a listing of the
jurisdictions included in our study and the criteria used to select them.)
Because we selected a nongeneralizable sample of election jurisdictions,
the experiences and views discussed in this report cannot be generalized
to all 296 jurisdictions required to provide bilingual voting assistance
under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act or to the community-based
organizations (CBO) in these jurisdictions.

^1Dr. James Tucker and Dr. Rodolfo Espino, "Minority Language Assistance
Practices in Public Elections" (Arizona State University: Mar. 7, 2006).

Table 9: Jurisdictions Selected for GAO Site Visits and the Related
Information Used to Make the Selections

                  Jurisdiction                          Current               
                  covered under Sec.                    language              
Election       203 in year 2000    Current covered   minority    Census    
jurisdiction   for the first time? language group(s) subgroup(s) region    
Boston         No                  Spanish-heritage  Hispanic    Northeast 
(Suffolk                                                                   
County), MA                                                                
Cook County,   No                  Spanish-heritage, Hispanic,   Midwest   
IL                                 Asian American    Chinese               
Harris County, No                  Spanish-heritage, Hispanic,   South     
TX                                 Asian American    Vietnamese            
Jackson        Yes                 American Indian   Sioux       Midwest   
County, SD                                                                 
King County,   Yes                 Asian American    Chinese     West      
WA                                                                         
Los Angeles    No                  Spanish-heritage, Hispanic,   West      
County, CA                         Asian American    Chinese,              
                                                        Filipino,             
                                                        Japanese,             
                                                        Korean,               
                                                        Vietnamese            
Miami-Dade     No                  Spanish-heritage  Hispanic    South     
County, FL                                                                 
Montgomery     Yes                 Spanish-heritage  Hispanic    South     
County, MD                                                                 
Orange County, No                  Spanish-heritage, Hispanic,   West      
CA                                 Asian American    Chinese,              
                                                        Korean,               
                                                        Vietnamese            
Kenai          No                  Alaskan Native,   Aleut,      West      
Peninsula                          American Indian   American              
Borough, AK                                          Indian                
Sandoval       No                  American Indian   Navajo,     West      
County, NM                                           Pueblo                
Seward County, Yes                 Spanish-heritage  Hispanic    Midwest   
KS                                                                         
Starr County,  No                  Spanish-heritage  Hispanic    South     
TX                                                                         
Suffolk        No                  Spanish-heritage  Hispanic    Northeast 
County, NY                                                                 

                Covered                                                               
               language                                                               
               group(s)                                                               
             voting age                                                               
Jurisdiction   limited-                                                               
     citizen    English                                                   Recommended 
  voting age proficient                                   Subject Uses    by advocacy 
  population population Percentlimited-Englishproficient  of DOJ  early   groups for  
     in 2000    in 2000                          in 2000  action? voting? study?      
     388,580     11,820                              3.0  Yes     No      Yes         
3,429,235    143,175                              4.2  No      Yes     Yes         
1,964,970    124,885                              6.4  Yes     Yes     Yes         
       655^a       25^a                            3.8^a  No      No      No          
1,220,300     10,535                              0.9  No      Yes     Yes         
4,992,965    644,505                             12.9  Yes^b   Yes     Yes         
1,164,345    273,975                             23.5  Yes     Yes     Yes         
     539,745     10,055                              1.9  No      No      No          
1,631,415    137,160                              8.4  No      Yes     Yes         
           a          a                                a  No      Yes     No          
       6,670      2,525                             37.9  Yes     Yes     Yes         
      11,715      1,160                              9.9  No      Yes     Yes         
      22,600     10,050                             44.5  No      Yes     No          
     978,075     16,685                              1.7  Yes     No      No          

Source: GAO analysis of data from U.S. Census Bureau, DOJ, local/state
officials, and national advocacy groups.

^aFor jurisdictions covered because of the American Indian Reservation
approach, population data are provided on citizens who are American
Indians or Alaska Natives in the part of the jurisdiction that is
contained within the Indian Reservation. A discussion of these criteria is
provided in appendix II.

^bThe DOJ actions involved subjurisdictions within Los Angeles County, not
the county itself.

^cPopulation data were not provided by the Census Bureau when the total
number of voting age citizens is less than 50.

Generally, we obtained information from the single office responsible for
conducting elections in each of these jurisdictions. However, in two
jurisdictions--Cook County, Ill., and Harris County, Tex.--we met with
officials in two separate offices because each office had separate
responsibilities for statewide and federal elections held in the
jurisdiction. In Cook County, the Chicago Board of Elections Commissioners
is responsible for administering these elections in the portion of Cook
County that is Chicago, and the Cook County Clerk is responsible for
administering elections in the remainder of Cook County. In Harris County,
the tax assessor/collector is responsible for voter registration, and the
County Clerk is responsible for the remainder of election activities. Due
to numerous scheduling conflicts, we were unable to arrange a visit to
Sandoval County, N. Mex.; however, we did obtain written responses to our
questions from an election official in Sandoval County via electronic
means. In one jurisdiction--Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska--we
interviewed not only a local government official who has responsibility
for local elections but also state officials, as the state has
responsibility for overseeing federal and statewide elections in Alaska
jurisdictions. Also, we selected 2 sub-jurisdictions among the 14 covered
jurisdictions to learn about the bilingual voting assistance these
localities provided in local elections. We identified these
sub-jurisdictions by asking election officials about what localities
within their jurisdictions conducted their own local elections. These
localities were: Los Angeles City, Calif., and Kadoka City, S. Dak.

In addition to obtaining information from election officials, we also
selected 38 CBOs that represent relevant language minority communities in
11 of the 14 jurisdictions.^2 We selected the CBOs through inquiries with
election officials, contacts with national level advocacy groups to learn
of local counterparts, contacts with the CBOs themselves to learn of
additional groups in their communities, and Internet searches. In our
discussions with representatives with a few CBOs, we were able also to
speak with a few language minority voters (in one case with the help of an
interpreter) who said they had used the bilingual assistance provided by
their jurisdiction.

We either conducted on-site interviews with or obtained information
electronically from election officials and CBO representatives regarding
the bilingual voting assistance provided in the November 2006 general
election and any subsequent elections through June 2007. Using a
semi-structured interview guide, we obtained information from the election
offices about

           o office staff assigned to provide bilingual assistance;
           o the office's strategy for identifying needs and providing
           bilingual assistance;
           o the type(s) and availability of bilingual assistance provided at
           different stages of the election process for the November 2006
           general election and any subsequent elections, including voter
           education efforts, voter registration, early voting and absentee
           voting, recruiting and training poll workers, ballot design and
           voting systems, Election Day activities, and the usefulness of
           this assistance to voters; and
           o supporting documentation as evidence of the types of bilingual
           voting assistance (e.g., sample ballots, pamphlets, voter
           education materials, etc.) provided to language minority voters in
           these jurisdictions.

^2After repeated attempts, we were unable to make contact with any CBOs in
Sandoval County, N. Mex., and Suffolk County, N.Y. Additionally, we were
unable to locate any CBOs in Starr County, Tex.

Using a semi-structured interview guide, we also obtained information from
CBO representatives about their roles in providing bilingual voting
assistance in the November 2006 general election and any subsequent
elections; their views about the bilingual assistance provided by the
election office in these elections; and the usefulness of this assistance.

We also interviewed officials and obtained documents from other relevant
parties. Interviews and documents were obtained from the DOJ Civil Rights
Division, which is responsible for providing program guidance and
enforcing compliance with the requirements under Section 203 of the Voting
Rights Act. We also interviewed officials from the EAC, which was
established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to, among other things,
act as a clearinghouse and resource for information and review of
procedures with respect to the administration of federal elections.
Additionally, we interviewed the Chief of the Census Bureau office that
prepares the determinations for Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act. We
reviewed pertinent federal laws, regulations, and agency guidance
pertaining to the bilingual voting provisions. We also reviewed extensive
prior GAO work, other national studies, reports, and news articles;
attended several national conferences; and interviewed the secretary of
state for one state with jurisdictions covered by Section 203 to gain
further insight regarding these issues. We conducted this performance
audit from October 2006 to January 2008 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we
plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to
provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our
audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit
objectives.

Appendix II: Section 203 Coverage Criteria Regarding Language Minority
Groups and Covered Jurisdictions

Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act provides specific criteria for
determining which states and jurisdictions are covered by the Section 203
language minority provisions. The Director of the Census Bureau has
responsibility for making the official determinations regarding which
political subdivisions are covered under section 203. To make its
determinations, the Census Bureau reevaluates the jurisdictions covered by
Section 203 every 10 years using new Census data as they become available.
^1 The number of covered jurisdictions has risen from 227 in 1975, the
first year jurisdictions were required to comply with Section 203,^2 to
296 jurisdictions in 30 states in 2002, the year of the most recent
determination.^3 The Census Bureau uses classifications--states, counties,
minor civil divisions, or tribal areas--and variables such as voter age,
language proficiency, and citizenship as self-reported on Census forms to
determine the jurisdictions to be covered under Section 203. The following
material in figure 1 describes the coverage criteria.

^1The long form census, which had been used in coverage determinations,
will no longer be used by the Census Bureau after 2010. The American
Community Survey has replaced the long form and will be administered by
the Census Bureau annually. As a result, future determinations for
coverage under Section 203 will be made by the Director of the Census
based upon information compiled by the ACS on a rolling 5-year average.

^2 40 Fed. Reg. 41827 (1975). In addition to the 227 jurisdictions
identified in the 1975 determinations, the state of Alaska was also listed
as having statewide coverage for Native Alaskans but with no specific
jurisdictions identified as being covered.

^3 67 Fed. Reg. 48,872 (2002).

Figure 1: Section 203 Coverage Criteria for Implementation of the Voting
Rights Act Provisions Regarding Language Minority Groups

^aThe criteria for coverage are contained in Section 203(b).

The Director of the Census Bureau applied these criteria to the data
obtained from the 2000 census (the most recent census) to determine which
jurisdictions are covered under Section 203. The Director of the Census
Bureau identifies the relevant language groups for the covered
jurisdictions. Because the Census Bureau data used to determine the
covered language are self-reported, the specific language an individual
speaks is not always identified and thus jurisdictions may not know the
specific language for which they are to provide assistance. For example,
an individual may identify their language as "Indian language," but this
does not clarify for the jurisdiction what specific Indian language
assistance it is to provide. Also, some Section 203 covered jurisdictions
have more than one language group for which they are required to provide
voting assistance. (See table 10 for the list of jurisdictions covered
under Section 203 and the respective language groups, as of July 2002.)

Table 10: Jurisdictions Covered under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act

State and political subdivision     Language group                         
Alaska                                                                     
Aleutians West Census Area          Aleut                                  
Bethel Census Area                  Eskimo                                 
Bethel Census Area                  American Indian (Tribe not specified)  
Bethel Census Area                  American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Denali Borough                      Athabascan                             
Dillingham Census Area              Eskimo                                 
Dillingham Census Area              American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Dillingham Census Area              Native (Other group specified)         
Kenai Peninsula Borough             American Indian (Tribe not specified)  
Kenai Peninsula Borough             Aleut                                  
Kodiak Island Borough               Filipino                               
Lake and Peninsula Borough          Athabascan                             
Lake and Peninsula Borough          Aleut                                  
Lake and Peninsula Borough          Eskimo                                 
Nome Census Area                    Eskimo                                 
North Slope Borough                 American Indian (Tribe not specified)  
North Slope Borough                 Eskimo                                 
Northwest Arctic Borough            Eskimo                                 
Northwest Arctic Borough            Alaska Native (Other group specified)  
Southeast Fairbanks Census Area     Athabascan                             
Southeast Fairbanks Census Area     Native (Other group specified          
Valdez-Cordova Census Area          Athabascan                             
Wade Hampton Census Area            Eskimo                                 
Wade Hampton Census Area            American Indian (Chickasaw)            
Wade Hampton Census Area            American Indian (Tribe not specified)  
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area           Athabascan                             
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area           Eskimo                                 
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area           American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Arizona                                                                    
Apache County                       American Indian (Apache)               
Apache County                       American Indian (Navajo)               
Apache County                       American Indian (Pueblo)               
Cochise County                      Hispanic                               
Coconino County                     American Indian (Navajo)               
Coconino County                     American Indian (Pueblo)               
Gila County                         American Indian (Apache)               
Graham County                       American Indian (Apache)               
Greenlee County                     Hispanic                               
Maricopa County                     Hispanic                               
Maricopa County                     American Indian (Tohono O'Odham)       
Navajo County                       American Indian (Apache)               
Navajo County                       American Indian (Navajo)               
Navajo County                       American Indian (Pueblo)               
Pima County                         Hispanic                               
Pima County                         American Indian (Tohono O'Odham)       
Pima County                         American Indian (Yaqui)                
Pinal County                        American Indian (Apache)               
Pinal County                        American Indian (Tohono O'Odham)       
Santa Cruz County                   Hispanic                               
Yuma County                         Hispanic                               
Yuma County                         American Indian (Yuman)                
California                                                                 
State Coverage                      Hispanic                               
Alameda County                      Hispanic                               
Alameda County                      Chinese                                
Colusa County                       Hispanic                               
Contra Costa County                 Hispanic                               
Fresno County                       Hispanic                               
Imperial County                     Hispanic                               
Imperial County                     American Indian (Central or South      
                                       American)                              
Imperial County                     American Indian (Yuman)                
Kern County                         Hispanic                               
Kings County                        Hispanic                               
Los Angeles County                  Hispanic                               
Los Angeles County                  Chinese                                
Los Angeles County                  Filipino                               
Los Angeles County                  Japanese                               
Los Angeles County                  Korean                                 
Los Angeles County                  Vietnamese                             
Madera County                       Hispanic                               
Merced County                       Hispanic                               
Monterey County                     Hispanic                               
Orange County                       Hispanic                               
Orange County                       Chinese                                
Orange County                       Korean                                 
Orange County                       Vietnamese                             
Riverside County                    Hispanic                               
Riverside County                    American Indian (Central or South      
                                       American)                              
Sacramento County                   Hispanic                               
San Benito County                   Hispanic                               
San Bernardino County               Hispanic                               
San Diego County                    Hispanic                               
San Diego County                    Filipino                               
San Francisco County                Hispanic                               
San Francisco County                Chinese                                
San Joaquin County                  Hispanic                               
San Mateo County                    Hispanic                               
San Mateo County                    Chinese                                
Santa Barbara County                Hispanic                               
Santa Clara County                  Hispanic                               
Santa Clara County                  Chinese                                
Santa Clara County                  Filipino                               
Santa Clara County                  Vietnamese                             
Stanislaus County                   Hispanic                               
Tulare County                       Hispanic                               
Ventura County                      Hispanic                               
Colorado                                                                   
Alamosa County                      Hispanic                               
Conejos County                      Hispanic                               
Costilla County                     Hispanic                               
Crowley County                      Hispanic                               
Denver County                       Hispanic                               
La Plata County                     American Indian (Navajo)               
La Plata County                     American Indian (Ute)                  
Montezuma County                    American Indian (Navajo)               
Montezuma County                    American Indian (Ute)                  
Otero County                        Hispanic                               
Rio Grande County                   Hispanic                               
Saguache County                     Hispanic                               
Connecticut                                                                
Bridgeport town (Fairfield County)  Hispanic                               
Hartford town (Hartford County)     Hispanic                               
Meriden town (New Haven County)     Hispanic                               
New Britain town (Hartford County)  Hispanic                               
New Haven town (New Haven County)   Hispanic                               
Waterbury town (New Haven County)   Hispanic                               
Windham town (Windham County)       Hispanic                               
Florida                                                                    
Broward County                      Hispanic                               
Broward County                      American Indian (Seminole)             
Collier County                      American Indian (Seminole)             
Glades County                       American Indian (Seminole)             
Hardee County                       Hispanic                               
Hendry County                       Hispanic                               
Hillsborough County                 Hispanic                               
Miami-Dade County                   Hispanic                               
Orange County                       Hispanic                               
Osceola County                      Hispanic                               
Palm Beach County                   Hispanic                               
Hawaii                                                                     
Honolulu County                     Chinese                                
Honolulu County                     Filipino                               
Honolulu County                     Japanese                               
Maui County                         Filipino                               
Idaho                                                                      
Bannock County                      American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Bingham County                      American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Caribou County                      American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Owyhee County                       American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Power County                        American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Illinois                                                                   
Cook County                         Hispanic                               
Cook County                         Chinese                                
Kane County                         Hispanic                               
Kansas                                                                     
Finney County                       Hispanic                               
Ford County                         Hispanic                               
Grant County                        Hispanic                               
Haskell County                      Hispanic                               
Kearny County                       Hispanic                               
Seward County                       Hispanic                               
Louisiana                                                                  
Allen Parish                        American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Maryland                                                                   
Montgomery County                   Hispanic                               
Massachusetts                                                              
Boston city (Suffolk County)        Hispanic                               
Chelsea city (Suffolk County)       Hispanic                               
Holyoke city (Hampden County)       Hispanic                               
Lawrence city (Essex County)        Hispanic                               
Southbridge town (Worcester County) Hispanic                               
Springfield city (Hampden County)   Hispanic                               
Michigan                                                                   
Clyde township (Allegan County)     Hispanic                               
Mississippi                                                                
Attala County                       American Indian (Choctaw)              
Jackson County                      American Indian (Choctaw)              
Jones County                        American Indian (Choctaw)              
Kemper County                       American Indian (Choctaw)              
Leake County                        American Indian (Choctaw)              
Neshoba County                      American Indian (Choctaw)              
Newton County                       American Indian (Choctaw)              
Scott County                        American Indian (Choctaw)              
Winston County                      American Indian (Choctaw)              
Montana                                                                    
Big Horn County                     American Indian (Cheyenne)             
Rosebud County                      American Indian (Cheyenne)             
Nebraska                                                                   
Colfax County                       Hispanic                               
Sheridan County                     American Indian (Sioux)                
Nevada                                                                     
Clark County                        Hispanic                               
Elko County                         American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Elko County                         American Indian (Shoshone)             
Humboldt County                     American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Lyon County                         American Indian (Paiute)               
Nye County                          American Indian (Shoshone)             
White Pine County                   American Indian (Shoshone)             
New Jersey                                                                 
Bergen County                       Hispanic                               
Cumberland County                   Hispanic                               
Essex County                        Hispanic                               
Hudson County                       Hispanic                               
Middlesex County                    Hispanic                               
Passaic County                      Hispanic                               
Union County                        Hispanic                               
New Mexico                                                                 
State Coverage                      Hispanic                               
Bernalillo County                   Hispanic                               
Bernalillo County                   American Indian (Navajo)               
Bernalillo County                   American Indian (Pueblo)               
Catron County                       American Indian (Pueblo)               
Chaves County                       Hispanic                               
Cibola County                       American Indian (Navajo)               
Cibola County                       American Indian (Pueblo)               
De Baca County                      Hispanic                               
Dona Ana County                     Hispanic                               
Eddy County                         Hispanic                               
Grant County                        Hispanic                               
Guadalupe County                    Hispanic                               
Harding County                      Hispanic                               
Hidalgo County                      Hispanic                               
Lea County                          Hispanic                               
Luna County                         Hispanic                               
McKinley County                     American Indian (Navajo)               
McKinley County                     American Indian (Pueblo)               
Mora County                         Hispanic                               
Rio Arriba County                   Hispanic                               
Rio Arriba County                   American Indian (Navajo)               
Roosevelt County                    Hispanic                               
San Juan County                     American Indian (Navajo)               
San Juan County                     American Indian (Ute)                  
San Miguel County                   Hispanic                               
Sandoval County                     American Indian (Navajo)               
Sandoval County                     American Indian (Pueblo)               
Santa Fe County                     Hispanic                               
Santa Fe County                     American Indian (Pueblo)               
Socorro County                      Hispanic                               
Socorro County                      American Indian (Navajo)               
Socorro County                      American Indian (Pueblo)               
Taos County                         Hispanic                               
Taos County                         American Indian (Pueblo)               
Torrance County                     Hispanic                               
Union County                        Hispanic                               
Valencia County                     Hispanic                               
Valencia County                     American Indian (Pueblo)               
New York                                                                   
Bronx County                        Hispanic                               
Kings County                        Hispanic                               
Kings County                        Chinese                                
Nassau County                       Hispanic                               
New York County                     Hispanic                               
New York County                     Chinese                                
Queens County                       Hispanic                               
Queens County                       Chinese                                
Queens County                       Korean                                 
Suffolk County                      Hispanic                               
Westchester County                  Hispanic                               
North Dakota                                                               
Richland County                     American Indian (Sioux)                
Sargent County                      American Indian (Sioux)                
Oklahoma                                                                   
Harmon County                       Hispanic                               
Texas County                        Hispanic                               
Oregon                                                                     
Malheur County                      American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
Pennsylvania                                                               
Philadelphia County                 Hispanic                               
Rhode Island                                                               
Central Falls city (Providence      Hispanic                               
County)                                                                    
Providence city (Providence County) Hispanic                               
South Dakota                                                               
Bennett County                      American Indian (Sioux)                
Codington County                    American Indian (Sioux)                
Day County                          American Indian (Sioux)                
Dewey County                        American Indian (Sioux)                
Grant County                        American Indian (Sioux)                
Gregory County                      American Indian (Sioux)                
Haakon County                       American Indian (Sioux)                
Jackson County                      American Indian (Sioux)                
Lyman County                        American Indian (Sioux)                
Marshall County                     American Indian (Sioux)                
Meade County                        American Indian (Sioux)                
Meade County                        American Indian (Cheyenne)             
Mellette County                     American Indian (Sioux)                
Roberts County                      American Indian (Sioux)                
Shannon County                      American Indian (Sioux)                
Stanley County                      American Indian (Sioux)                
Todd County                         American Indian (Sioux)                
Tripp County                        American Indian (Sioux)                
Ziebach County                      American Indian (Sioux)                
Texas                                                                      
State Coverage                      Hispanic                               
Andrews County                      Hispanic                               
Atascosa County                     Hispanic                               
Bailey County                       Hispanic                               
Bee County                          Hispanic                               
Bexar County                        Hispanic                               
Borden County                       Hispanic                               
Brewster County                     Hispanic                               
Brooks County                       Hispanic                               
Caldwell County                     Hispanic                               
Calhoun County                      Hispanic                               
Cameron County                      Hispanic                               
Castro County                       Hispanic                               
Cochran County                      Hispanic                               
Concho County                       Hispanic                               
Crane County                        Hispanic                               
Crockett County                     Hispanic                               
Crosby County                       Hispanic                               
Culberson County                    Hispanic                               
Dallas County                       Hispanic                               
Dawson County                       Hispanic                               
Deaf Smith County                   Hispanic                               
DeWitt County                       Hispanic                               
Dimmit County                       Hispanic                               
Duval County                        Hispanic                               
Ector County                        Hispanic                               
Edwards County                      Hispanic                               
El Paso County                      Hispanic                               
El Paso County                      American Indian (Pueblo)               
Fisher County                       Hispanic                               
Floyd County                        Hispanic                               
Frio County                         Hispanic                               
Gaines County                       Hispanic                               
Garza County                        Hispanic                               
Glasscock County                    Hispanic                               
Goliad County                       Hispanic                               
Gonzales County                     Hispanic                               
Guadalupe County                    Hispanic                               
Hale County                         Hispanic                               
Hall County                         Hispanic                               
Hansford County                     Hispanic                               
Harris County                       Hispanic                               
Harris County                       Vietnamese                             
Hidalgo County                      Hispanic                               
Hockley County                      Hispanic                               
Howard County                       Hispanic                               
Hudspeth County                     Hispanic                               
Irion County                        Hispanic                               
Jeff Davis County                   Hispanic                               
Jim Hogg County                     Hispanic                               
Jim Wells County                    Hispanic                               
Karnes County                       Hispanic                               
Kenedy County                       Hispanic                               
Kinney County                       Hispanic                               
Kleberg County                      Hispanic                               
Knox County                         Hispanic                               
Lamb County                         Hispanic                               
La Salle County                     Hispanic                               
Live Oak County                     Hispanic                               
Loving County                       Hispanic                               
Lubbock County                      Hispanic                               
Lynn County                         Hispanic                               
Madison County                      Hispanic                               
Martin County                       Hispanic                               
Matagorda County                    Hispanic                               
Maverick County                     Hispanic                               
Maverick County                     American Indian (Other tribe           
                                       specified)                             
McMullen County                     Hispanic                               
Medina County                       Hispanic                               
Menard County                       Hispanic                               
Midland County                      Hispanic                               
Mitchell County                     Hispanic                               
Moore County                        Hispanic                               
Nolan County                        Hispanic                               
Nueces County                       Hispanic                               
Parmer County                       Hispanic                               
Pecos County                        Hispanic                               
Presidio County                     Hispanic                               
Reagan County                       Hispanic                               
Reeves County                       Hispanic                               
Refugio County                      Hispanic                               
Runnels County                      Hispanic                               
San Patricio County                 Hispanic                               
Schleicher County                   Hispanic                               
Scurry County                       Hispanic                               
Starr County                        Hispanic                               
Sterling County                     Hispanic                               
Sutton County                       Hispanic                               
Swisher County                      Hispanic                               
Tarrant County                      Hispanic                               
Terrell County                      Hispanic                               
Terry County                        Hispanic                               
Titus County                        Hispanic                               
Tom Green County                    Hispanic                               
Travis County                       Hispanic                               
Upton County                        Hispanic                               
Uvalde County                       Hispanic                               
Val Verde County                    Hispanic                               
Victoria County                     Hispanic                               
Ward County                         Hispanic                               
Webb County                         Hispanic                               
Wharton County                      Hispanic                               
Willacy County                      Hispanic                               
Wilson County                       Hispanic                               
Winkler County                      Hispanic                               
Yoakum County                       Hispanic                               
Zapata County                       Hispanic                               
Zavala County                       Hispanic                               
Utah                                                                       
San Juan County                     American Indian (Navajo)               
San Juan County                     American Indian (Ute)                  
Washington                                                                 
Adams County                        Hispanic                               
Franklin County                     Hispanic                               
King County                         Chinese                                
Yakima County                       Hispanic                               

Source: Federal Register (67 Fed. Reg. 48,871-48,877 (2002) (codified in
appendix to 28 C.F.R. Part 55)).

Note: In the cases where a state is identified as covered, those counties
or county equivalents not displayed in the table are exempt from the
obligation.

Appendix III: DOJ Actions under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act,
1980-2007

Jurisdiction                          State Date Type of action            
County and City of San Francisco      CA    1980 Consent decree            
San Juan County                       UT    1984 Memorandum of agreement^a 
McKinley County                       NM    1986 Consent decree^b          
State of Arizona                      AZ    1989 Consent decree^c          
New Mexico and Sandoval County        NM    1990 Consent decree^d          
Dade (Metropolitan) County            FL    1993 Consent decree            
Cibola County                         NM    1993 Stipulation and order^e   
Socorro County                        NM    1993 Consent decree            
Alameda County                        CA    1996 Settlement agreement and  
                                                    order                     
San Juan County                       NM    1996 Memorandum of agreement   
Bernalillo County                     NM    1998 Consent decree^f          
City of Lawrence                      MA    1999 Settlement agreement and  
                                                    order                     
County and City of Passaic            NJ    1999 Consent decree^g          
Orange County                         FL    2002 Consent decree            
Brentwood Union Free School District  NY    2003 Consent decree            
San Benito County                     CA    2004 Consent decree            
San Diego County                      CA    2004 Consent decree            
Ventura County                        CA    2004 Consent decree            
Suffolk County                        NY    2004 Consent decree            
Harris County                         TX    2004 Memorandum of agreement   
Yakima County                         WA    2004 Consent decree            
City of Azusa                         CA    2005 Consent decree            
City of Paramount                     CA    2005 Consent decree            
City of Rosemead                      CA    2005 Consent decree            
City of Boston                        MA    2005 Memorandum of agreement   
Westchester County                    NY    2005 Consent decree            
Cochise County                        AZ    2006 Consent decree            
Maricopa County                       AZ    2006 Memorandum of agreement   
Broward County                        FL    2006 Memorandum of agreement   
City of Springfield                   MA    2006 Consent decree            
City of Philadelphia                  PA    2006 Complaint                 
Hale County                           TX    2006 Consent decree            
Kane County                           IL    2007 Consent decree            
City of Walnut                        CA    2007 Complaint                 
City of Earth                         TX    2007 Complaint                 
Seagraves Independent School District TX    2007 Complaint                 
Littlefield Independent School        TX    2007 Complaint                 
District                                                                   
Post Independent School District      TX    2007 Complaint                 
Smyer Independent School District     TX    2007 Complaint                 

Source: DOJ officials.

^aConsent decree was amended in 1990.

^bConsent decree was amended in 1990.

^cConsent decree amended in 1993.

^dConsent decree modified in 1994 and again in 2004.

^eAgreement was extended in 2004.

^fConsent decree extended in 2003.

^gAdditional criteria set forth in supplemental consent decree in 2001.

Appendix IV: Examples of Bilingual Voting Written Assistance Materials

The following are excerpted examples of bilingual voting materials
provided by election officials in covered jurisdictions.

Figure 2: Excerpt of a Chinese Voter Registration Form - King County,
Wash.

Figure 3: English/Chinese Bilingual Absentee Ballot Request Form - King
County, Wash.

Figure 4: English/Vietnamese Bilingual Sample Ballot - Boston, Mass.

Figure 5: English/Spanish Bilingual Official Ballot - Boston, Mass.

Figure 6: Spanish Voting Instructions - Los Angeles, Calif.

Figure 7: Bilingual Polling Place Signs - King County, Wash.

Figure 8: Bilingual Poll Worker Nametags and Buttons - Orange County,
Calif.

Figure 9: Multilingual Tally Card - Los Angeles, Calif.

Appendix V: Additional Challenges to Evaluating the Usefulness of
Bilingual Voting Assistance

In addition to the three key issues discussed earlier in this report,
other difficult issues also face election offices in evaluating the
bilingual voting assistance they provide, including: (1) how to
appropriately sample, or select, polling places and language minority
voters to include in an evaluation; (2) the receptivity of language
minority voters to participation in a study; (3) having data collectors
who can speak fluently the specific language, and possibly dialect, of
language minority voters in a jurisdiction; (4) having the necessary staff
and technical expertise to conduct a methodologically sound evaluation;
and (5) the likely expense of an evaluation.

           o Determining how to sample: When determining how to gather data
           from the language minority voting population, a jurisdiction must
           decide whether to conduct a census (collect data from everyone) or
           to select a sample of the population from whom to get information.
           Depending on various factors, including the numbers of precincts
           and the numbers of voters in the jurisdiction, collecting
           information from all members of a given population, such as all
           language minority voters could be very costly, as well as
           logistically difficult to do in evaluating the usefulness of
           bilingual voting assistance. Therefore, selecting a probability or
           nonprobability sample can be a more cost-effective alternative.^1
           For example, if a jurisdiction was unable to collect data from all
           voters on Election Day, it could select a probability sample of
           voters in an exit poll. To be able to generalize the results to
           all language minority voters, such an exit poll would need to be
           based on a probability sample of precincts in the jurisdiction and
           voters voting within each selected precinct throughout Election
           Day. Alternatively, jurisdictions could collect information from
           language minority voters through methods such as comment cards
           soliciting feedback about bilingual voting placed on tables in
           precincts on Election Day, or they could log individuals' calls to
           a telephone hotline to report voting problems. While useful
           information could be obtained, there would be no guarantee that
           the voters who completed the cards or called the hotline were
           statistically representative of all voters who used the bilingual
           voting assistance. As a result, a jurisdiction would need to be
           cautious about interpreting the information obtained from this
           source because the information could be biased.

           o Identifying willing participants: It is necessary to have
           language minority voters who are receptive to participation in an
           evaluation. In some locations, language minority voters may be
           sensitive about their English language skills, and consequently,
           there may be some embarrassment about needing to use bilingual
           voting assistance or about the extent to which the assistance is
           helpful. In these instances, it may be difficult to get language
           minority voters to cooperate, or, if they do cooperate, difficult
           to obtain accurate information about their experiences in using
           the assistance provided.

           o Obtaining data collectors with language skills: Any evaluation
           of bilingual voting assistance must use individuals trained in
           data collection methods. These individuals would also need to
           speak fluently the specific language, and possibly dialect, spoken
           by language minority voters in a jurisdiction in order to
           effectively communicate with language minority voters asked to
           participate in a study.

           o Having the necessary staff: Election offices face the difficult
           issues of having the necessary staff and technical expertise to
           conduct methodologically sound evaluations in evaluating the
           effectiveness of the bilingual voting assistance provided. Since
           the purpose of election offices is to conduct elections, it is
           unlikely that election offices will have staff available who
           either have the time or professional expertise to conduct an
           evaluation. Therefore, election offices would likely need to seek
           outside professional assistance, such as through a contract with a
           consultant, to do so.

           o Having sufficient resources: Efforts to evaluate program
           effectiveness can be expensive. Unless an election office received
           special funding to evaluate its bilingual assistance program, it
           would likely have to rely on existing operating budgets that may
           already be limited. Officials in five jurisdictions said they had
           no money or staff to evaluate the assistance they provided. The
           election administrator in one jurisdiction stated that their top
           funding priorities were for operational needs, not for conducting
           such a study.

^1 A probability sample, sometimes referred to as a statistical or random
sample, is a sample in which each member in the population has a known
chance, or probability, of being selected. If the objective of an
evaluation is to make generalizations or draw conclusions about an entire
population, without using a census, a probability sample could be used to
do this. In a nonprobability sample, members in the population have no
chance, or an unknown chance, of being selected. The major limitation of
nonprobability samples is that the results cannot be used to make
inferences, or generalizations, about a population.

Appendix VI: Comments from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission

Appendix VII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

William O. Jenkins, Jr. (202) 512-8777 or [email protected]

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to those named above, Dawn E. Hoff, Assistant Director; David
Alexander, Assistant Director; Claudia K. Becker; Natalie Chaney; Geoffrey
Hamilton; Linda Miller; Hugh C. Paquette; Deena D. Richart; and Clarence
Tull, Sr., made key contributions to this report.

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(440552)

To view the full product, including the scope

and methodology, click on [76]GAO-08-182 .

For more information, contact William O. Jenkins, Jr. at (202) 512-8777 or
[email protected].

Highlights of [77]GAO-08-182 , a report to congressional committees

January 2008

BILINGUAL VOTING ASSISTANCE

Selected Jurisdictions' Strategies for Identifying Needs and Providing
Assistance

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, contains, among other things,
provisions designed to protect the voting rights of U.S. citizens of
certain ethnic groups whose command of the English language may be
limited. The Department of Justice (DOJ) enforces these provisions, and
the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) serves as a national
clearinghouse for election information and procedures. The Fannie Lou
Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act
Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 mandated that GAO study the
implementation of bilingual voting under Section 203 of the act. This
report discusses (1) the ways that selected jurisdictions covered under
Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act have provided bilingual voting
assistance as of the November 2006 general election and any subsequent
elections through June 2007, and the challenges they reportedly faced in
providing such assistance; and (2) the perceived usefulness of this
bilingual voting assistance, and the extent to which the selected
jurisdictions evaluated the usefulness of such assistance to language
minority voters. To obtain details about this voting assistance, GAO
obtained information from election officials in 14 of the 296
jurisdictions required to provide it, as well as from community
representatives in 11 of these jurisdictions. These jurisdictions were
selected to reflect a range of characteristics such as geographic
diversity and varying language minority groups.

All but 1 of the 14 election jurisdictions GAO contacted reported
providing some form of oral or written bilingual voting assistance through
such things as the use of bilingual poll workers, and each of the 14
jurisdictions reported challenges in providing assistance. Election
offices reported providing similar types of oral and written bilingual
voting assistance at each stage of the voting process--from voter
registration to Election Day--for the November 2006 and subsequent
elections. In nine of the jurisdictions, this bilingual assistance was
supplemented by efforts of community-based organizations. In part because
DOJ guidance intentionally provides jurisdictions flexibility in how they
implement bilingual voting requirements, election offices used varied
strategies to implement bilingual programs. Election officials in each of
the 14 jurisdictions reported challenges in implementing bilingual
assistance programs, including difficulty in recruiting bilingual poll
workers and effectively targeting where to provide bilingual voting
assistance. Officials in nine jurisdictions also noted they would benefit
from additional guidance for providing bilingual assistance. The EAC has
taken steps to provide additional guidance to jurisdictions, including
plans to develop a set of management guidelines for jurisdictions to use
in implementing their programs.

GAO identified little quantitative data measuring the usefulness of
various types of bilingual voting assistance. Election officials and
community-based organization representatives noted that certain forms of
assistance, such as having bilingual poll workers, were more useful than
others. Some jurisdictions stated that modifications, including outreach
to language minority groups, would improve the usefulness of bilingual
assistance. While none of the 14 jurisdictions had attempted to formally
evaluate their assistance, most reported gathering information about the
usefulness of certain aspects of the assistance. While formal evaluations
have proven to be a successful means to improve program effectiveness,
conducting formal evaluations of the usefulness and effect of bilingual
voting assistance is difficult. Key difficulties include identifying the
appropriate indicators of success and isolating the effects of bilingual
assistance efforts on voters from other influences on election processes.
We provided a draft of this report to DOJ and the EAC for comment. DOJ
provided no comments, and the EAC's comments described its recent
activities on bilingual voting assistance.

Examples of Bilingual Assistance: Polling Place Signage and Poll Worker
Name Tag

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References

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  74. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-01-470
  75. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/GGD-97-81
  76. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-182
  77. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-182
  78. http://www.gao.gov/
  79. http://www.gao.gov/
  80. http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm
  81. mailto:[email protected]
  82. mailto:[email protected]
  83. mailto:[email protected]
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