Posted on 09/27/2004 6:26:23 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Bilingual poll workers eyed for DFW area
Associated Press
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) Tarrant County election officials are recruiting bilingual poll workers to handle the anticipated large turnout among newly minted U.S. citizens.
The county plans to place a bilingual clerk at each of the 400 voting sites for the Nov. 2 election to help voters understand the mechanics of casting a ballot.
"We think we are going to have a large turnout. We just want to be able to provide assistance to whoever needs it," said Gayle Hamilton, Tarrant Countys assistant elections administrator, in Sundays Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
English speakers with Spanish-speaking skills are expected to be at nearly every Tarrant County polling site. Poll workers with Vietnamese expertise are needed in Arlington and Haltom City.
The Texas secretary of state is encouraging counties to provide help in communities where English is not always the first language. Previously, election judges who knew the ethnic makeup of their precincts recruited the necessary bilingual poll workers.
Hispanics increased from 285,000 in 2000 to 332,000 or 21.8 percent of Tarrant Countys population of 1.4 million in 2002, according to U.S. Census figures. Spanish-speaking immigrants are moving to Fort Worth and suburbs such as Arlington.
"They become citizens. They become involved in the election process, and they want to vote," said Vince Perez, a 71-year-old election judge.
Tarrant County has the 10th-largest Vietnamese population in the country, with 19,396, according to the 2000 Census. The Vietnamese have been the focus of voter-registration drives, officials said.
09/27/04
To vote you are supposed to be a citizen.
To be a citizen you are supposed to be able to speak, read, and write English.
Therefor, to vote you are are supposed to be able to speak, read, and write English.
(Of course if you are a demoncrat, you don't even have to be able to breathe.)
Then why are bi-lingual helpers needed?
How do they get to be citizens without knowing English?
If they don't have any knowledge of English should they have the right to a translator who is paid at the taxpayers expense?
If they knew enough English to become citizens why do they need translators to read a ballot in the first place?
Are all or most of the poll workers in the Valley bilingual?
The answer is obvious--the vote cast will depend on the vote normally cast by the helper--takes the voter by the hand and points directly where he/she must vote. Right?
"Tarrant County election officials are recruiting bilingual poll workers to handle the anticipated large turnout among newly minted U.S. citizens.... "
WHAT the Hell... ?
I know someone who had his history AND English test at his citizenship exam - yet he is still not a citizen.
How do THEY become citizens AND speak NO ENGLISH... !!!!!?
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