FortBendNow.com

In an attempt to provide equitable voting opportunities, and with an eye toward U.S. Department of Justice voting rights concerns, Fort Bend County Commissioners Court has created Spanish and Asian Languages advisory groups.

Creation of the Asian group represents the first formal step in an attempt to deal with the complex issue of providing voting material and information to a group that makes up about 14% of the county’s population, yet includes people speaking a wide variety of languages and dialects.

Issues surrounding providing equal voting rights to non-English-speaking Asian citizens now appear to be at the heart of a dispute between county officials and the Justice Department.

The groups are intended to “provide information and advice to commissioners court and the election administrator on the necessity of and the most effective and efficient means” of providing election materials, assistance and information to voters who speak Spanish or Asian languages.

The court also gave formal approval Tuesday to Spanish elections procedures similar to what officials have been following. Those include – among several other things – requiring Spanish-speaking poll workers to wear a badge saying “Se Habla Español,” and formalized training poll of workers in state and federal legal requirements involving Spanish-language voting issues.

But while issues involving Spanish-speaking citizens’ voting rights largely center on providing sufficient bilingual poll workers, voting issues involving the county’s Asian population are far more complex.

The county has faced pressure for months from the Justice Department, which in November approached commissioners court about signing a memorandum of understanding in order to avoid some unspecified legal action.

Commissioners balked, saying Justice officials had failed to show how the county was not meeting its obligations under the Voting Rights Act.

Commissioners court has discussed the Justice Department’s actions in a series of closed meetings, and neither the county nor the federal department has revealed contents of the letter of consent.

On Wednesday, however, Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers said one of the items in the Justice Department letter of consent would require the county to determine every voting precinct with 50 or more people of Asian descent, and provide translation and other election-related services to those people.

“Frankly,” Meyers said of Justice officials, “some of the suggestions they were making were untenable.”

Meyers said there are about 5,000 people in each of the county’s voting precincts. He also said about 24% of Sugar Land’s population is Asian, and 14% of the county’s overall population is Asian.

The task of determining, through voting rolls, the number of Asians in each precinct would be daunting by itself, he said, adding “You have to find out if Bill Lee descended from Robert E. Lee or speaks a Chinese dialect. Think about that.”

Harris County signed a Justice Department memorandum of understanding in March 2004 “protect the rights of Vietnamese-speaking voters,” according to DOJ. The memorandum and agreement “details the county’s responsibilities in providing qualified minority-language voters full access to the voting process.”

Steps Harris County was required to take under the agreement included hiring someone to coordinate a county Vietnamese language election program and providing all voter registration and election information and materials, including the voting machine ballots, in Vietnamese.

But Fort Bend County has a more diverse population, and conceivably would have to find a way to provide services similar to what Harris County did on behalf of its Vietnamese population – only on a far greater scale.

Meyers said county officials have been trying to figure out how to comply with Justice Department wishes while dealing on a practical basis with people who speak numerous languages and dialects.

Elections Administrator Steve Raborn came up with the idea of creating an Asian Language Advisory Board, in part because he was having difficulty finding qualified Asian poll workers, Meyers said.

“We hope these steps will be enough to keep the DOJ at bay, but also help all of our non-English-speaking residents be able to vote,” he said.

Two members of both the Asian and Spanish advisory committees will be selected by each county commissioner, two by the county judge and two by the elections commissioner.

To be eligible, a person must be a U.S. citizen, a registered voter, and not an elected office-holder or candidate for office.

Creation of the Asian group represents the first formal step in an attempt to deal with the complex issue of providing voting material and information to a group that makes up about 14% of the county’s population, yet includes people speaking a wide variety of languages and dialects.

Issues surrounding providing equal voting rights to non-English-speaking Asian citizens now appear to be at the heart of a dispute between county officials and the Justice Department.