Bilingual Ballots

Tyler Gunnin
Dr. Hughes
English 1101
11/20/09

Topic: Why we should discard all bilingual ballots

1. Blum, Edward. "A Nation Divided: The Consequences of Bilingual Ballots". 5 Reasons to Oppose Bilingual Ballots. 2006.

Edward Blum summarizes the debate of discarding bilingual ballots into five key points in this article. The five major ideas in the writing are: There is no justification for bilingual ballots and election materials, bilingual ballot requirements are arbitrary and wasteful, bilingual ballots are an un-funded mandate on local governments, bilingual ballots increase the the likelihood of errors and voter fraud, and bilingual ballots are a growing burden. A few key points that are made in this article are: since 1907 the United States has required immigrants to learn English in order to become a citizen and finish the process of naturalization, the illiteracy rate of language-minority-group citizens is higher than the national illiteracy rate, Los Angeles County taxpayers spent over $1.1 million in 1996 to provide bilingual, and the number of states and counties required to provide multilingual election materials is growing voting. The article also stresses the importance of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the amendment made to it in 1975. The writing gives many viable points to argue against the pro-bilingual ballot supporters. I want to use this article in pointing out key facts that show how and why bilingual ballots should be gotten rid of. By zoning in on the five key points mentioned in this article, including the Voting Rights Act, I believe I can get my main argument across in a way that has supporting evidence and back-up.


2. English First Foundation. "Bilingual Ballots: Election Fairness or Fraud?". English First Foundation Issue Brief. 22 February 2000.

The English First Foundation goes more in depth about many of the key points of why we should get rid of bilingual ballots. It starts off by mentioning the Voting Rights Act. This is one of the main arguments that I want to stress in my writing. A second key point the article makes is the question of legal and illegal aliens triggering bilingual requirements. There would be a huge possibility of creating two separate sections of "citizen" and "non-citizen" for the voting. Cost is another major idea that I want to focus on. In this article it also makes a point that unneeded bilingual ballots are quite expensive. Another interesting point made is that the accurate translations cannot be taken for granted. This and the point that bilingual ballots might not even be enough to guarantee an informed vote are two ideas that can be brought together in an argument I am trying to make. Also, the article backs these two points up with the very reasonable argument that private sectors and volunteer translators are very capable of making mistakes. I believe this article will help me in backing up multiple points I am trying to make evident in my paper. The writing is very in-depth and has a lot of information that should be easy in supporting the idea that bilingual ballots should be discarded for good.