Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta Applauds Passage of DeKalb County VOTE Resolution Implementation Plan
STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April, 11, 2024
CONTACT:
James Woo, Advancing Justice-Atlanta, jwoo@advancingjustice-atlanta.org
On March 18, 2024, the DeKalb County Board of Registrations and Elections (BRE) voted to approve the Department of Voter Registration and Elections (VRE) plan for implementation of the VOTE (Voting Opportunity and Translation Equity) resolution. Currently, the first stage of implementation is in progress, and voters will be able to find key election information including composite ballots and important dates in three languages: Spanish, Amharic, and Korean.
Upon full implementation of the VOTE resolution implementation plan, DeKalb will have translated election materials in as many as seven languages, the most of any county in Georgia.
The VRE developed a tiered plan that prioritizes translation of key election materials into Spanish and Amharic, the two most commonly spoken non-English languages in DeKalb County. The county will continue to translate the same materials in Korean. The plan also creates a pathway for expanding translation of election materials into four secondary languages: Chinese, Vietnamese, French, and Bengali. The VRE has identified several actionable items to strengthen community engagement, recruit and train bilingual poll workers, establish community-based multilingual working groups, and create a process for ongoing feedback and assessment. The DeKalb County Board of Commissioners has approved approximately $400,000 in the county’s FY24 budget to support the costs of translation services.
At a Board of Elections meeting in July 2023, representatives from Advancing Justice-Atlanta and other immigrant rights organizations spoke about the importance of robust language access efforts in DeKalb elections. The approved implementation plan takes into account several of the recommendations made during that meeting as well as those Advancing Justice-Atlanta has provided to DeKalb County in recent years.
“DeKalb County and Advancing Justice-Atlanta have been long-time partners in the fight for greater language access in Georgia elections. We look forward to continued collaboration,”. Said Dr. Anar Parikh, Senior Policy Associate at Advancing Justice-Atlanta. “This partnership has resulted in numerous productive efforts to ensure that all Georgians have the resources they need to exercise their right to vote no matter what language they speak.”
In 2020, DeKalb County became the first county in Georgia to offer translated election materials into an Asian language, and in doing so, was also the first county in the state to voluntarily take steps beyond those required by the federal Voting Rights Act to meaningfully expand language access for language minority citizens in this state. The county codified its commitment to language equity and access with the passage of the VOTE resolution in September 2022.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI), and other marginalized communities in Georgia and the Southeast
