Important Ballot Details Are Lost in the Translation

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Page 7

AFFAIRS OF STATE (Column)

Important Ballot Details Are Lost in the Translation

By DAVID KLINE

According to their official designations on the recall ballot, Republican Mike McNeilly is an “Artist” and Angelyne, the busty independent with no last name nor any discernable qualifications for office, is an “Entertainer.”

Unless you are reading the Spanish version of the ballot, that is. There, both McNeilly and Angelyne share the label of “Artista.”

So how can a voter using the Spanish ballot tell who does what? He’s can’t. To him, a wannabe celebrity and an aspiring Rembrandt are described with the same word, without a hint of distinction.

In the case of McNeilly and Angelyne, voters don’t have much to worry about since neither candidate is in any danger of winning the recall election. But elections have been being decided by as little as one vote per precinct, so even the smallest problem with ballot translations holds the potential of seriously undermining our electoral process.

And the problems are there.

Cruz Bustamante is listed on the ballot as “Lieutenant Governor,” but the translation to Spanish, his new favorite language, is “Vicegobernador.” The position of vice governor doesn’t actually exist, but on the Spanish ballot, that’s Bustamante’s job.

Similarly, a candidate who is a “Tribal Chairman” is promoted to “Presidente tribal” for the Spanish ballot.

A recall candidate listed as a “Prizefighter” gets the opposite treatment—he is downgraded to a mere “boxeador,” a plain old boxer, for those who vote in Spanish.

Meanwhile, a “Gay Rights Attorney” becomes an “Abogado de derechos de homosexuales,” which is significant for those who profess that “gay” and “homosexual” carry very different connotations.

Only Gary Coleman gets a perfectly accurate translation, as “Actor” is the same in both languages.

This is a bigger deal than it may seem. Voters probably don’t realize it, but there are very strict rules for determining a ballot designation, because experience has proven that designations can make a difference in the outcome of elections.

For the English ballot, a designation can be a maximum of three words, with very limited exceptions. No such word limit exists for the foreign-language versions.

State law requires that the designation be supported with evidence that it accurately describes the candidate’s primary profession, vocation or occupation—and there are specific definitions of “profession,” “vocation” and “occupation” to eliminate confusion.

There are even stipulations on what words can and cannot be used. The word “incumbent,” for example, must be used as a noun. “It shall not be used in conjunction with any other words, including any accompanying adjectives or modifiers, and must stand alone,” the law says.

The word “retired” can be used only by those who truly have retired from a profession, vocation or occupation, and there is a list of factors which the secretary of state may consider when determining whether it’s a legitimate retirement.

The law even states that each ballot designation “shall be grammatically correct, generic, and all words must be spelled correctly.”

Political consultants are well versed in these laws, and are paid to determine such things as whether voters would be more likely to support a person labeled “Incumbent” or “State Lawmaker.” The right designation can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

In 1994, a ballot designation proposed by a candidate for the Los Angeles Superior Court was challenged by opponents who said it was incorrect and would give the candidate, a former state legislator, an unfair advantage. A judge allowed the description of “Law Professor/Lawmaker,” even though the candidate wasn’t a law professor, and voters—who follow judicial elections about as closely as they follow City Council meetings— gave him the job.

With so much attention paid to the minutia of the ballot designations, and with so much riding on how voters interpret each and every word, it’s unbelievable that our election officials allow inaccurate translations to appear in the foreign-language ballots. Why bother with the rules and the legal wrangling if the descriptions are going to be changed entirely when they are translated into a foreign language?

Along with the errors in the Spanish ballot, there are bound to be some in the versions translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese. But we’d have to learn all these languages to really know for sure, wouldn’t we?

One can only wonder if Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, who is responsible for certifying that election materials are prepared correctly, speaks all those languages fluently? If not, he can’t be 100 percent sure that he is doing his job—and that’s unacceptable, since his job is safeguarding our elections.

To keep elections honest, the state should print all ballots in English, so Shelley and other Californians who speak the state’s official language can monitor elections closely without having to learn six foreign tongues.

— Capitol News Service