Primary Poll Monitoring Reveals Improvement in Language Assistance in Cook County
Chicago-On March 18, Asian Americans Advancing Justice—Chicago, in partnership with Common Cause Illinois and the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee, ran a poll monitoring operation covering over 85 precincts across Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. Advancing Justice—Chicago focused on monitoring 56 precincts federally designated for language assistance in both Chinese and South Asian languages, to ensure that election law was properly implemented. Polling sites ranged from Schaumburg to Chinatown. Early polling reports indicate that overall, Cook County sites performed well. There were two instances of absent bilingual election judges, some technology issues at sites leading to slightly longer voting times, and two incidents of inappropriate comments from election judges. Advancing Justice—Chicago legal director Andy Kang described the poll monitoring goal as, “designed to ensure that any voter who is able to get assistance isn’t turned away. While we’ve seen improvement in terms of materials and responsiveness from election judges, there’s still some work to be done in making polling sites more accessible, and election judges as sensitive as possible to the language assistance needs of limited-English speaking voters, who are entitled to certain voting rights under federal law.”
This Election Day effort comes on the heels of the Pan Asian Voter Empowerment Coalitions’ successful early voting campaign, which brought 512 voters to the polls on March 8 and March 15. One of the biggest campaigns was led by the Korean American Resource & Cultural Center. Executive Director Sik Son noted, “our successful get out the vote efforts are a marker of how savvy our community is in connecting their issues and needs to the ballot. We’re looking forward to an even more robust campaign for the November election cycle.” On March 20, nearly 100 organizers and leaders in the Asian American community will go to Springfield to advocate for issues on the Asian American State Agenda. Agenda items include a Same Day registration initiative and a domestic workers’ rights bill. Kathleen Jung Hee Fernicola, Director of Policy and Programs at Advancing Justice—Chicago, notes, “We believe in expanding the opportunities to register and vote, as well as increasing the accuracy and integrity of our election system. Same Day Registration is a key to unlocking the power of our growing community.”
These combined efforts speak to the growing political will and power of one of the fastest growing communities in Illinois. At nearly 700,000 the Asian American Pacific Islander community in Illinois is a diverse population, and with a 53% increase in voter registration in the last decade, increasingly one with the power to shape elections.
PAVE Coalition includes: Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Chicago, Cambodian Association of Illinois, Chinese American Service League, Chinese Mutual Aid Association, Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community, Hamdard Center for Health and Human Services, Indo-American Center, Japanese American Service Committee of Chicago, Korean American Community Services, Korean American Resource and Cultural Center, Lao American Community Services, Lao American Organization of Elgin, Muslim Women Resource Center.