3 new language access quick guides to help you build your program
We’ve just released three new quick guides to help your election offices dive deeper into creating effective language access!
They are:
- Working with Translation Vendors
- Translating for Elections
- Hiring a Language Access Coordinator
All 3 can be found on our Language Access page.
Why now? Many more elections offices are providing language assistance to voters since the 2021 Census and the new Voting Rights Act requirements. One of the biggest expansions will come in 2023 when New York City will provide election information in 13 languages.
We’ve also been hearing from offices that don’t have legal requirements and are voluntarily looking for ways to reach communities in other languages.
Whatever stage of development your language access program is in, we hope these guides help you grow or expand.
Creating and testing effective translation
We receive many questions from election offices across the country about translation. There are so many questions that can come up from starting a translation project to making sure it’s accurate. This is why two of the three quick guides we are releasing focus on this topic. Translation is more than changing words from one language to another.
In a recent workshop we ran to test the Vietnamese translation of election material with native speakers, we saw the impact of poor translation. We were surprised to find out from participants that some Vietnamese translation was not just inaccurate but even offensive to voters.
For example, we learned from participants that the Vietnamese phrase used to translate “to sign up” was understood to mean “government conscription.” In another instance, the translation used for “patient” actually meant “prisoner.”
Beyond confusion about the actual meaning of the text, these errors alienate voters from the civic process.
Expanding language access can also lead to powerful civic engagement opportunities. As she shared her feedback about the translations, one voter was moved to tears. During the decades she’d lived in the U.S. as a citizen, she had never been able to vote because her district did not provide language access materials. Coming to our research interview was the first time she could participate in the civic process.
Our quick guide on working with translation vendors covers:
- How to find a civic translator
- Questions to ask before hiring a translator
- Timelines to keep for working on projects
You can find the quick guide to working with translation vendors here.
Our quick guide on translating for elections covers:
- How to build translation resources
- How to create a language word bank
- How to test your translations
You can find the quick guide to translating for elections here.
Growing your language access team
Coordinating all the activities that go into a good language access program is a full-time job. Our third guide in this series covers hiring a language access coordinator, whose job it is to handle all the tasks and relationships required to ensure your offices’ language access is accurate, effective and reaches its intended audience. We include information on:
- Approaches to recruiting
- How to evaluate your language access needs
- What you can consider including in a job description
You can find the quick guide to hiring a language access coordinator here.
We hope these quick guides give a boost to new or expanding language access programs.
As always, if you have any questions or feedback about the topics covered in these quick guides, please reach out to hello@civicdesign.org. We’d love to hear from you.
If you’re just getting started with language access, check out our workbook Planning Language Access – it’s based on a workshop we do, and is meant for those starting from scratch.
Other news: Check out our updated Ranked Choice Voting best practices
We’ve just released our updated Ranked Choice Voting best practices guides for anyone beginning to work with RCV. The 3 in-depth guides cover voter information, ballot design, and displaying results.