Sietse Goffard with the Asian Law Caucus – a civil rights group based in San Francisco – says immigrant voters are the most likely to vote by mail.
It gives them time at home to be able to go through their ballots, perhaps study it with their relatives at home.
But if they do vote in person, they’ll find assistance that’s required by federal and state law, depending on the language they speak and how common it is in their community.
That can include multilingual pollworkers, who will have buttons to identify what they speak.
There’s also headphones for those who are unable to read or see their ballot.
You can plug it in and listen to, for example, a translated version of that ballot if that county is covered under certain language thresholds.
Goffard says if you can’t get a ballot in your own language, you can sometimes get a facsimile ballot that lines up with the English one. But he thinks there should be more available.
It really speaks to the need and the importance of multilingual ethnic media or local journalism to be able to help educate people about all the different races and ballot measures they’re voting on.
He says for now, those resources are definitely lacking in the state.