Luzerne County’s Election Board voted Wednesday to continue providing Spanish ballots in all elections.
Michael Susek, who became county election director in December, had asked the board for a directive on the matter because he did not want to rely solely on past practice.
An increase in Spanish-speaking residents had prompted county election officials to start offering Spanish ballots in the April 2012 election, according to past reports. Officials say Luzerne County is not among those required to provide language assistance under the National Voting Rights Act based on the population of residents not proficient in English.
All three sitting election board members — Audrey Serniak, Patrick Castellani and Chairwoman Denise Williams — voted for the Spanish ballot continuation.
Serniak said the Spanish ballots are expected by impacted voters because they have been offered in the past. Voters who are more proficient in Spanish will spend less time voting because they won’t have to pause for translation, which will reduce polling place lines and make the process more efficient for other voters, she said.
“The odds are sooner or later, in the next five years probably, we will be required to provide them anyway,” Serniak said of the Spanish ballots.
Castellani concurred, saying the accommodation should continue. He said his father taught him to speak Italian when he was younger so he could communicate with his father, but he could not read or write in Italian.
Some Latino residents may continue to speak their original Spanish even though they passed an English proficiency test to obtain United States citizenship, he said.
Williams agreed, saying the board has been attempting to be consistent in other election-related decisions and should not stop a service that has been offered for a decade.
Under federal law, counties must provide language assistance when 5% of the voting-age population speaks another language, which currently applies to Berks, Lehigh and Philadelphia, Williams said. However, she said Luzerne and three other counties have been providing Spanish ballots.
She estimated Luzerne County is now in the 4% range and will continue steadily increasing.
“These are registered voters. They’re citizens,” Williams said of the people the county would be assisting.
Castellani said he could not justify discontinuing the Spanish ballots.
“I don’t know how you would explain that to anyone. I really don’t,” he said.
The board also asked the election bureau to start tracking which poll workers are bilingual in an effort to ensure language assistance is available, if needed, at polling places with a high number of Latino voters.
In a public comment submitted by email, Hazleton Integration Project Executive Director Rossanna Gabriel said the majority of families moving into the county are Latino.
Hazleton’s population is now more than 60% Latino, she said.
“Please consider how important it is that the residents of our community are given the opportunity to fully understand the ballot before casting the votes they have earned when they became citizens,” Gabriel wrote.
Hazleton resident Bob Stevens told the board in an email comment both the ballot and polling place should be “reflective of the demographics.”
Stevens said he has personally witnessed the difficulties non-English speakers encounter understanding the ballot and the process for casting a vote.
“This is a matter of common sense and basic fairness. If, in fact, the objective of this or any election is for the result to accurately reflect the will of the people to be served, then providing the most accessible process is a no-brainer,” he wrote.
Former county councilwoman Elaine Maddon Curry also spoke during public comment as chairwoman of the Hazleton Advisory Council of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.
As evidence the number of registered Latino voters will keep growing, Maddon Curry said Hazleton had the most growth of any city in the county, with an 18.2% increase in population.
She commended the county for offering the ballot in both English and Spanish since 2012 and said any change to that policy while the Latino population is steadily increasing would be “inconsistent and counterproductive.”
While all Spanish-speaking citizens registered to vote are U.S. citizens somewhat proficient in English, she said they often fall back on their primary language. A Spanish ballot prevents mistakes, she said.
“Now is not the time to change,” she said.
A man from Plymouth spoke against the Spanish ballot, saying the county should encourage English language integration.