Help for Hispanic voters better

YAKIMA – Yakima County made progress in its efforts to meet federal requirements to help limited-English speakers vote during the September primary election, the U.S. Justice Department said.

In a letter to the county earlier this month, the federal government agreed the county had made progress, but at the same time pointed out areas where more improvement is needed. Those areas included placing bilingual signs at polling places and more worker training.

The letter from the agency’s Civil Rights Division also said hostility to bilingual election workers and Spanish-speaking voters “continues to be an issue in Yakima County.”

County Auditor Corky Mattingly said she was pleased with the report. Her office plans additional training for poll workers before the general election.

“I think most of it involves tightening the process. We knew we needed to do more training. They pointed out things we need to work on,” she said.

Mattingly agreed Thursday to allow federal observers early access to polling places to watch how workers prepare for the general election.

The use of observers stems from a court agreement between the Justice Department and the county to resolve a federal Voting Rights Act complaint. A total of 53 federal observers were in Yakima County during the Sept. 14 primary.

The 1973 law requires translation assistance be available when more than 5 percent of a county’s adult population is from a single-language minority group with limited English proficiency.

Justice officials have been reviewing Yakima County election procedures for two years, based on results of the 2000 census. According to Census data, Hispanics made up more than 82,000 of the county’s total population of 220,000.

Yakima County is one of four counties in the state required to comply with the law’s provisions to assist those with limited English skills. The others are Franklin and Adams counties for Spanish and King County for Chinese.

Yakima County is the only one for which an agreement order has been entered, according to Shawn Merchant, elections policy analyst with the Washington Secretary of State’s Office. Franklin County has increased the amount of bilingual elections materials, he said.