Berks County election officials say they plan to investigate whether they\u2019re doing enough to ensure voters who need translators have access to them at the polls.<\/p>\n
The discussion at an election board meeting Thursday was spurred by a letter from the Pennsylvania Democratic Party concerning whether the county is in compliance with a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act. The law requires jurisdictions with significant numbers of people with limited English proficiency to provide language assistance.<\/p>\n
First Assistant County Solicitor Cody Kauffman said 54 precincts in the county have interpreters on site to assist Spanish-speaking voters. Of those, 44 are located in Reading. The others are in Laureldale, Mount Penn West Reading and Muhlenberg Township. Those precincts are also required to provide bilingual voting materials.<\/p>\n
Kauffman said the current number of precincts that provide language assistance is based on litigation from 2003, but since then the county has had conversations with the Department of Justice regarding compliance.<\/p>\n
He said the most recent discussion took place in 2021, when the county was told that it is meeting its requirements but that it should be targeting potential new precincts.<\/p>\n
Kauffman said the county has tried different methods to determine if there are precincts that should be added to that list. One involves analyzing the surnames of voters. But such methods have had reliability issues. The most helpful method, he said, has been collecting feedback from poll workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly, we will continue to utilize these practices and target additional precincts that may meet these bilingual requirements,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know that we have specific data on our end that supports expanding our current bilingual practices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kauffman said the county would welcome any data that supports expanding the precincts.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Michael Rivera, election board chairman, said the county will be providing poll workers with questions in this election to help gather more information.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone has any suggestions about how we could gather this information we want to hear that so we can know we are meeting the needs of our electors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Christian Leinbach pointed out that the county does have interpreters manning its call center who are available to help voters at any precinct throughout the county on Election Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this is not a matter where people are being turned away because they don\u2019t speak the language,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rivera also noted that voters are permitted to bring someone into the voting booth to provide language support, if needed.<\/p>\n
Also on Thursday, Kauffman provided an update regarding the national legal battle over the use of mail ballots.<\/p>\n
The fight involves an executive order signed in March by President Donald Trump directing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to develop state citizenship lists. It would then require the U.S. Postal Service to send mail ballots only to voters who are on such a list. The order would also require ballot envelopes to comply with new Postal Service rules and include barcodes.<\/p>\n
A federal judge paused the order while litigation continues, but Trump filed an appeal to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Kauffman said nothing has changed regarding Pennsylvania mail ballot voting laws as they stand right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that all of this could seem a little confusing because it is,\u201d he said. \u201cWe continue to monitor for any new decisions and will certainly update the board as new information becomes available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leinbach said the legal challenges are problematic so close to the election and have the potential to cause confusion among voters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not appropriate,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re sitting on the precipice of litigation that doesn\u2019t seem to have any end in sight and I\u2019m very concerned about what impact this could have on trust in our elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rivera said the county has received fewer requests for mail ballots this election than in previous elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no way to know if these court challenges are a reason why this is the case but it could be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Dante Santoni Jr. said he believes this is all part of an attempt by the Trump administration to suppress voter turnout and undermine confidence in the electoral system.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny attempt to scare people is a threat to our democratic process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Berks County election officials say they plan to investigate whether they\u2019re doing enough to ensure voters who need…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,139,28,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-285701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}