Fighting for the Right to Rock the Vote
The first step in the battle to reauthorize the landmark Voting Rights Act has been made with the House’s OK. Now as the Senate takes up the issue, APAs say voting barriers must be demolished.
With citizenship comes responsibility, so when Kit Fong Yeung raised her right hand to pledge allegiance to the country she has called home for nearly two decades her next move was naturally to pick the next U.S. president. In 2004, the Manhattan Chinatown resident arrived at her polling place to find the voting machine broken and other voters filling out affidavits. The words on the form did not really make much sense to Yeung and an interpreter was not available to help, so she just filled out the form herself plunging her mind into uncertainly.
When she learned about her rights as a citizen — which includes language assistance — uncertainty turned to outrage. Yeung along with four other Asian Pacific American voters and four APA groups including the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) have sued the New York City Board of Elections for violating language assistance provisions required by Section 203 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The lawsuit filed in February 2006 accuses the board of failing to provide election related materials and assistance to APAs with limited English proficiency.
“I want us all to be treated equally,” said Byung Soo Park, another plaintiff in the lawsuit who needs an interpreter to vote.
But the problem isn’t isolated.
The Chinese American Voters Association (CAVA), a New York-based non-profit organization, set up a complaint hotline at the last general election for voters to report violations. The phone calls “went through the roof,” said Hank Yeh CAVA co-president. In 2004, AALDEF received about 600 complaints from voters across the nation.
And perhaps most scary of all is the fact that provisions of the Voting Rights Act, including language assistance, is set to expire in 2007. Civil rights groups including the JACL have been charging the course for the passage of HR 9 or “The Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006,” which if signed into law would reinstate the provisions for another 25 years.
The provisions set to expire in 2007 are:
The “preclearance” provisions of Section 5, which require jurisdictions in all or part of 16 states to prove that a voting change does not discriminate against minority voters before that change can be implemented;
The minority language provisions of Section 203;
Provisions of Sections 6-9 which authorize the Department of Justice to appoint an examiner and send observers to polls to deter, witness and report discriminatory activities at the polls.
A major victory was won July 13 when the House voted 390-33 to pass HR 9 while defeating four amendments to the bill that many civil rights leaders say would have weakened the Voting Rights Act’s protections.
“The Voting Rights Act is perhaps one of the most important civil rights laws as the right to vote helps to protect all other rights,” said Karen K. Narasaki, president and executive director of the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC). “We are pleased that the bipartisan leadership in the House passed a strong bill to ensure that all Americans continue to have the ability to exercise their right to vote.”
However, this is just the first step.
The focus now shifts to the Senate, where the Judiciary Committee is expected to take up the measure.
At the June 21-24 national JACL convention in Chandler, Arizona the national council unanimously passed an emergency resolution to urge Congress to ensure the extension of the VRA’s expiring provisions. The resolution also calls for JACL chapters along with the executive director to send letters of support to lawmakers regarding the VRA reauthorization.
“Voting rights is what JACL has fought to retain for many decades,” said JACL Director of Public Policy Floyd Mori. “While language may not be a problem for most of us today, the language provisions are essential to recent immigrants much like it was to our Issei forefathers.
“Fighting for voting rights is a legacy of JACL that does not stop just because most of us today have the right to vote. It is also a critical reminder to us that our voice needs to be heard at the ballot box in order for this country to be what our founding fathers intended it to be,” said Mori.
As one of the fastest growing ethnic communities, statistics show APAs can be profoundly affected by the fate of the VRA reauthorization. In a survey that included eight states and 81 poll sites in 23 cities spanning nearly 17 years, AALDEF revealed language competency, cultural differences and discrimination at the polls contribute to voter disenfranchisement. AALDEF collected many testimonies from APA voters who were discriminated against by poorly trained poll workers.
“These are Asian people like my grandparents and parents who want to take part in the electoral process and are taken advantage of,” said Glenn Magpantay, AALDEF’s voting rights attorney. “They are here and they are mistreated. It’s wrong.”
The four named plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the New York City Board of Elections faced many barriers while trying to cast their votes, so they decided to come forward and incite change. The suit is currently in settlement negotiation, said Magpantay.
“I think they were very brave. When our community stands up and speaks out, good things happen,” he added.
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