The Justice Department is accusing at least three Florida counties of violating the Voting Rights Act, as part of the 2000 election fiasco fallout.
Also in the third county, the Civil Rights Division's investigation "indicated that a lack of bilingual poll workers resulted in considerable confusion at the polls, and that some poll workers were hostile to Hispanic voters."Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have to be a citizen to vote? Why are we letting people become citizens if they aren't proficient in English? And when I say "proficient," I mean minimal competence, really. After all, how hard is it to translate "Ralph Nader" into Spanish? (Though apparently plenty of English speakers had trouble with the instructions, which said, "Don't vote for Pat Buchanan, stupid.")In previous documents, the government has said that Orange and Osceola counties failed to have enough Spanish-speaking poll workers and did not provide election information in both Spanish and English.
The government alleges that Miami-Dade officials did not do enough to help Haitian American voters understand the ballot, according to a copy of a proposed agreement between the county and the Justice Department.