Jump in counties required to provide language help to voters

By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press

The number of people in counties requiring elections officials to provide voting materials in languages other than English jumped by almost a quarter over the past five years, reflecting the increasingly diverse electorate in the U.S. Figures released Wednesday show more than 24.2 million people live in places that require the language assistance under federal law. Jurisdictions must provide the language assistance if more than 5% of voting-age citizens come from a single-language minority group. The overwhelmingly majority of residents in these jurisdictions require Spanish language assistance. Among the other languages in which voting materials are required are Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hindi, Korean, Vietnamese, as well as several American Indian and Alaskan Native languages.