Tuesday, April 2, 2002
Page 7
AFFAIRS OF STATE (Column)
Which Candidate Did You Choose for ‘Hamlet Prosecutor’?
By DAVID KLINE
To say that “something got lost in the translation” would be putting it lightly. Down in Orange County, the primary election sample ballots sent to Vietnamese-speaking voters contained inexcusable mistakes, such as describing the sheriff as a “low-level officer who examines dead bodies.”
The job title for the district attorney became “hamlet prosecutor,” and the county clerk-recorder was described as “office secretary” in the information mailed to 25,000 voters by the county registrar. “They translated some things very, very wrong,” Chuyen Van Nguyen, of the Vietnamese American Voters Coalition of Orange County, told the Associated Press. “These kind of sloppy translations have happened in prior years, too.”
Those of us who don’t speak Vietnamese will have to take his word for it. And that is precisely the problem.
Given that the state constitution proclaims English to be “the official language of the State of California,” people who speak the official language shouldn’t have to rely on others to determine whether our elections are being conducted fairly. We shouldn’t have to learn Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese—the six foreign languages for which the state provides ballot translations—to make sure our most precious right is being safeguarded.
We have a tough enough time making sure the English versions of our election materials are accurate. The courts often have been called upon to rule whether the ballot titles given to certain propositions are fair, or whether simple changes in wording are needed to eliminate a bias for or against the measure.
In Los Angeles, there have been major battles over such things as whether a candidate for judge can describe himself on the ballot as a “law school professor” if he is not a full-time employee of a school.
These disputes arise because seemingly minor changes in wording might sway the election. Voters who don’t know much about a ballot proposition might vote for a measure described as an “assessment augmentation,” but might oppose the same measure if it were labeled a “tax increase.”
A candidate for judge might do well at the polls if he is called a “lawmaker,” but could lose votes if described as a “politician.”
Clearly, these matters are important—not just to the candidates and the sponsors of ballot measures, but to all of us whose lives are affected by political candidates and changes to the law.
The integrity of the ballot, fine print and all, is crucial.
When the ballot and other election materials are translated into foreign languages, the integrity is compromised. Some languages, including Vietnamese, do not have exact equivalents of English words, so a precise translation is impossible. Thus, after a judge determines exactly how a candidate must be described or how a proposition must be worded in English, translators with no accountability to the public can change the descriptions on the foreign-language versions.
In the last presidential election, we were reminded of the importance of each and every vote. We know we shouldn’t be lax about the integrity of some votes simply because we don’t want to be perceived as being mean to people who don’t speak English.
Changes are needed, and a wise starting point would be the repeal of the federal law that requires states to print ballots in languages the elections officials don’t even understand.
— Capitol News Service
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company