Drafter
Clerk 07/15/2015
Title
AN ORDINANCE related to elections; promoting access to elections for historically underrepresented citizens; and adding new sections to K.C.C. chapter 2.16.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. More than one hundred seventy different languages are spoken in King County and a quarter of the county's population speaks a language other than English in the home.
2. Washington is among the states with the highest growth rates of limited English proficient populations; much of that growth is concentrated in and around King County. More than half of the county's recent population growth is from immigration.
3. The King County Strategic Plan 2010-2014 includes the objective to empower people to play an active role in shaping their future, via the strategy of providing accurate, secure and accessible elections.
4. Research suggests that civic engagement is a significant predictor of economic opportunity across states.
5. The United States Congress found in Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, P.L. 94-73, 42 U.S.C. 1973aa-1a, that, "through the use of various practices and procedures, citizens of language minorities have been effectively excluded from participation in the electoral process." The law requires covered states or political subdivisions to make all elections information available in English also available in the language of the applicable minority group, and specifies these language minority groups as persons of American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Native or Spanish heritage. Jurisdictions are covered under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 based on numbers or percentage of voting age citizens in the language group and rates of English literacy for the language group that are lower than the national average, as measured by the United States Census Bureau.
6. Research shows that targeted minority language voting materials and related outreach can improve voter turnout. According to a report b...

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