Hi, I'm new to the forum but a concerned American and needed a place to voice my concern. Hopefully this forum will eventually be found and read by someone who can or will affect a change.

Let me start by saying that I have nothing against Americans for whom English is a second language. I think this great country was founded by immigrants with great determination to leave oppressive other countries to make a new life for them selves and be governed by themselves and I think that diversity within our community is a good thing. I say that so that my next comments will not be taken out of context or misconstrued.

I received my absentee ballot in the mail along with instructions to complete the ballot and instructions about the additional postage needed. I noticed that these instructions were printed in both English and in Chinese. This bothered me, not because I think that Chinese speaking (or reading) Americans shouldn't vote, but because none of the Initiatives, House Measures, or Referendums, were written in Chinese, they were written in English. What bothers me is the idea that people could be making Yes or No decisions that affect me and other Americans when they may or may not be able to understand the issue for which they are deciding. I think that as long as the Measures that are on the ballot continue to be written and published only in English than the instructions to vote on the same should also be only in English. If someone wants to participate in self governing with concerns to laws written in English then they should understand the language and the written law before making those decisions.

I think that there are a couple of ways to solve this problem:
1. Require an English reading comprehension test in order to get your voter registration card
(personally this seems unconstitutional and bigoted to me)
2. If we are going to publish instructions for the voting ballots in multiple languages, then the ballots and all measures should be translated into each of those languages.
(and it shouldn't be just Chinese, what about Russian, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and any others for whom there is a large American ESL population?)

Am I the only one who feels this way? Is it wrong to expect voters to understand the things for which they are voting?

(I have a second gripe and about the information provided to voters at decision making time on the ballot, and though it's in the same vane, it is a separate topic so I will post separately.)