Illinois GOP Chair Warns Chicago's 12-Language Ballots Hinder Oversight as Some Options Drew 9 Votes
Updated
Updated · Fox News · Oct 23
Illinois GOP Chair Warns Chicago's 12-Language Ballots Hinder Oversight as Some Options Drew 9 Votes
1 articles · Updated · Fox News · Oct 23
Summary
Chicago's expansion to 12 ballot languages is making elections harder to independently monitor, Illinois GOP Chair Bob Grogan said, arguing judges and party observers cannot effectively scrutinize ballots they do not understand.
Board data from the March primary showed very limited use for some translations: 9 English-Gujarati ballots, 15 English-Urdu, 10 English-Arabic, and 25 each in Russian and Ukrainian.
Chicago election officials said federal law requires Spanish, Chinese and Hindi materials in certain precincts, while the other languages are offered to match Cook County policy and provide equal access countywide.
The board said it has in-house translators and 810 multilingual judges among 7,218 assigned for November; multilingual ballots totaled 7,857 in March, or 1.85% of 424,564 citywide ballots.
Grogan said the security risk depends on scale, but argued the wider language menu exposes uneven standards across counties and complicates oversight even when usage is low.