Who's In? Who's Out? New Section 203 Minority Language Determinations

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Yesterday, the Census Bureau released its latest minority language determinations under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act. These determinations set the list of jurisdictions for which voting materials must be made available in languages other than English. From the press release:

The U.S. Census Bureau released today a list of 263 jurisdictions across the nation that must provide language assistance during elections for groups of citizens who are unable to speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process. These determinations are pursuant to specifications, as amended in July 2006, in the Voting Rights Act.

The list, published in the Federal Register, identifies which jurisdictions are covered by Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act and must provide language assistance for Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Asian language groups.

The Census Bureau has made these determinations following each decennial census since Section 203 was enacted in 1975. In 2006, Congress specified that the Census Bureau use statistics from the American Community Survey following the 2010 Census to conduct these determinations every five years. The determinations released today use data from the 2010-2014 American Community Survey 5-year estimates.

The 263 covered jurisdictions make up 3.3 percent of the 2,919 counties and 4,943 minor civil divisions that comprise the political subdivisions in the United States which were calculated for the Section 203 determinations. There are 68,800,641 eligible voting-age citizens in the covered jurisdictions, or 31.3 percent of the total U.S. citizen voting-age population.

The 2016 determinations found a total national population of 21,739,327 voting-age citizens subject to minority language assistance that reside in the 263 covered jurisdictions, compared with 19,209,431 and 248 jurisdictions in 2011, an increase of 13.2 percent. The determinations found a total of 16,621,136 Hispanics, 4,760,782 Asians, and 357,409 American Indian and Alaska Native voting-age citizens in the covered jurisdictions.

Here are the jurisdictions and languages covered by the new determinations:

The list also includes some key deletions: Los Angeles County, for example, is no longer covered for Japanese, Thai and Hindi, and numerous Arizona counties are no longer covered for Native American languages. Those jurisdictions – and others now with fewer languages or no coverage at all – will have to decide for themselves what, if any language assistance to provide.

It also remains to be seen how vigorously the new administration will enforce these requirements, which have long been a priority for the Department of Justice.

Obviously, these requirements have a tremendous impact on covered jurisdictions in terms of what their ballots and other voting materials look like and what resources are available to voters at the polls. You should expect to hear a lot – in many different languages! – in the weeks, months and years to come. Stay tuned …