Our View

County shares blame for violation

The Salinas Californian
Posted March 24, 2006

Thursday's federal court ruling keeping the controversial General Plan Initiative off the June 6 ballot is somewhat of a hollow victory for Monterey County.

The decision is based on a violation of the U.S. Voting Rights Act, a violation in which the county had a direct hand.

Of course, the drama isn't over in the battle over county land-use policy. Initiative backers plan to appeal Thursday's ruling. U.S. District Court Judge James Ware of San Jose said the initiative violated the Voting Rights Act, which requires voters to receive election materials in English and Spanish. The initiative, and the petitions signed to qualify it for the ballot, were printed only in English.

Because Monterey County has been under the authority of the Voting Rights Act since the 1970s, that omission makes for a gaping hole in the delivery of fair and equal elections. For that reason, the ruling is a victory for civil rights and due process.

However, county officials must share in the blame and embarrassment for allowing the violation to occur because they are in control of the whole process.

As Ware's written decision observes: "With respect to initiative petitions, the authority of local agencies is even greater. County officials not only review them, they draft a portion of them that is critical to the public's understanding of them. The title and summary play a central role in California's initiative process. Moreover ... the county controls the format in which the initiative is printed."

In this county, that format includes a Spanish version of all election materials.
To their credit, the slow-growth advocates pushing the initiative dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" in the process - except one: They didn't print initiative materials in Spanish. Apparently, they weren't instructed to do so, either.

It's commendable that they fanned out across the county with bilingual volunteers to explain the initiative to voters who needed translation to understand what was going on. The trouble is, the information was given orally and did not reach every voter who needed help. Hence, the lawsuit.
All the while, as the judge pointed out, county officials were in charge of the process.

Meanwhile, Thursday's ruling rises to a higher, more noble calling - protecting the rights of equal access to our democratic system for all Americans.
Though we're not convinced that was the motivation of the plaintiffs, in this case, the end justifies the means.

It's no secret that ours is becoming a bilingual society. California is closer to that reality than other states. As election materials go, we are a multilingual state. At election time, it's common to see ballots printed in Vietnamese, Cantonese and other Asian languages in Monterey and other counties.

Thanks to progressive tools such as the Voting Rights Act, we've made much progress toward equal access, but more remains to be done to protect the rights of racial and ethnic minorities to fully participate in the electoral process.

Thursday's ruling moves us closer to that end.