19 Cities and towns offer multilingual ballots, but some voters still need help

Lee said it took the group years to mobilize community members to testify about their experiences to government officials.

“It’s not an easy task in the immigrant community because people usually don’t like to have anything to do with the court or the government,” Lee said. “So it took a lot of education, constant meetings and conversations with people to find out what questions they had and answer them.”

In 2003, the Chinese Progressive Association reported allegations to the Boston Elections Department and Secretary of State William Galvin, alleging that election workers manipulated voters’ choices by showing them how to use voting machines.

A community group helped some voters document their experiences for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation.

In 2005, the Department of Justice sued the city of Boston for violating the federal Voting Rights Act. The city settled, agreeing to temporarily provide bilingual ballots to the Chinese and Vietnamese communities.

Nearly a decade later, former Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill that made bilingual Chinese and Vietnamese ballots available in Boston counties where more than 5% of voters speak that language.

Today, in addition to Chinese and Vietnamese ballots, Boston provides Spanish ballots. Fourteen other Massachusetts cities and towns must also provide ballots in Spanish. Lowell has ballots in Spanish and Khmer. Malden and Quincy offer Chinese ballots, and Randolph provides them in Vietnamese.

However, for those who speak other languages, election officials still rely on election workers to assist them.

“One of my goals as city clerk is to ensure bilingualism at the polls,” said Niko Vangjeli, Worcester city clerk. “We try to assign poll workers from across the city and from areas with large populations of multilingual people (voters).”

Worcester provides ballots in English and Spanish, but these facilities are important for Vietnamese, Twi and Portuguese-speaking populations.

He said state law allows an election official to provide language assistance at the ballot box – as long as a second official from a different political party is with him. He added that bilingual poll workers will be placed in precincts with high concentrations of voters who speak other languages, as indicated by census data.

“They do not provide any information about the candidates, platforms or what they represent,” Vangjeli said. “The only thing we as election officials are allowed to do is simply read the ballot and the instructions.”

In Worcester, every polling place, both for early voting and on Election Day, is equipped with a city cell phone that provides access to a language hotline that provides ballot translations in 70 different languages. The city also uses electronic ballot marking machines that enable people with disabilities to vote independently in English and Spanish.

Boston is offering voters a similar type of help. The city provides explanations of ballot questions in 11 languages, which voters can access online and at the ballot box in each precinct.

The Secretary of State’s office said it distributed information pamphlets translated into Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and Khmer throughout Massachusetts. Voting questions, registration details and voting procedures are also available in formats such as American Sign Language.

Voting rights advocates say the best way to expand voting access for non-English speakers is to provide ballots in as many languages ​​as possible.

In Massachusetts, voters can vote by mail, which allows them to get language assistance at home while completing their ballot.

Learn more about how to register, request absentee ballots and all the ways you can vote here.