FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, November 5th, 2024
CONTACT: Arjumand Khan – akhan@advancingjustice-chicago.org
Election Day 2024: Advancing Justice | Chicago Poll Watching Results
Chicago’s Only Watching Program Focused on Language Accessibility at the Polls!
Advancing Justice | Chicago monitored 221 precincts across Cook County to ensure voters who needed language assistance were able to cast their ballots.
CHICAGO (November 5th, 2024) – Voters in Illinois took to the polls today to cast their ballots for the presidential race, U.S. House races, state legislative races, and several local offices, including Cook County State’s Attorney and the historic Chicago Board of Education. Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago (Advancing Justice | Chicago) dispatched 36 poll watchers to monitor 221 precincts across Chicago and Cook County.
Poll watchers are sent to “designated language precincts” that have significant populations of limited English proficient (LEP) voters. Under the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the Cook County Voting Opportunity and Translation Equity (VOTE) Ordinance, these precincts are required to provide language assistance and translated voting materials.
Today, Advancing Justice | Chicago staff and volunteers monitored 100% of the designated Asian language precincts in Chicago and suburban Cook County.
“Being on-site, our poll watchers are able to observe voters, election judges, and polling place technicians, who provide us with direct feedback in real time as Election Day unfolds,” says Advancing Justice | Chicago Executive Director, Grace Pai.
The following Asian language groups are covered under the VRA and/or the VOTE Ordinance: Chinese (including Mandarin, Cantonese), South Asian (including Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu), Korean, and Tagalog.
Advancing Justice | Chicago runs the largest poll watching program for language accessibility in the city of Chicago and Cook County, ensuring LEP voters have a fair and equal opportunity to vote.
“It was extremely motivating to speak with election judges who were proud to offer multilingual options at their precincts. One of the judges I spoke said it was very exciting to be able to direct voters whose preferred language is not English to the multilingual touch screen voting station,” says volunteer poll watcher, Alice Li.
Preliminary findings indicate that the majority of observed issues took place in suburban Cook County. While there were a handful of reports of missing translated voting materials or malfunctioning technology in Chicago, designated Asian language precincts in the city largely functioned as expected.
In suburban Cook County, on the other hand, dozens of poll watchers reported the absence of required bilingual poll workers. In addition, several precincts were missing bilingual ballots and informational voting materials. While the Cook County Clerk introduced a new poster with QR codes that linked to translated voting information in 12 languages, poll watchers did not observe any voters utilizing the QR codes.
Advancing Justice | Chicago will compile observations, data, and recommendations into a report that will be shared with the Cook County Clerk and the Chicago Board of Elections early next year.
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Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago builds power through collective advocacy and organizing to achieve racial equity. Learn more at www.advancingjustice-chicago.org.
In leading up to each election, Advancing Justice | Chicago collaborates with a number of organizations on language access advocacy, including the Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment, Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, HANA Center, Indo-American Center, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the South Asian American Policy and Research Institute (SAAPRI).