[Today’s guest commentary is from Adam Probolsky.]

Folks, I have a real hard time with anyone telling me in what language I have to communicate.  Especially when its not English.

Today’s Flashreport features an exclusive column from OC Supervisor Chris Norby on multi-lingual ballots.  As a pollster, I deal in many languages because my job is to identify public opinion.  So sometimes that requires us to survey people in the language in which they are most comfortable speaking.  But I sure wouldn’t want to be forced into such a practice.  We only do it when it is necessary or prudent.

If you have tried to circulate recall papers or a local initiative for signatures lately chances are your attorney told you to publish the notice and circulate petitions in as many a five (5) additional languages: Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Korean and Vietnamese.

What a crock.

I mean no disrespect, but in the business of collecting signatures for a ballot measure, circulators do not have the time nor the interest in communicating to a voter who does not have a command of the English language.  Now if necessity dictates that they do, such as if more and more registered voters spoke another language besides English as their first, things might change.

But for now, the idea of spending thousands of dollars on 1) translating and 2) carrying a Korean petition is pointless to the purpose of qualifying a ballot measure.

If the proponent of a proposed ballot measure doesn’t want to be inclusive, doesn’t want Spanish speaking voters to sign his petition, so what.  He is not a racist or a bad person, he is just making a calculated judgment–a campaign decision.

What’s next?  Quien Sabe?

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.