For the first time, Gujarati speakers in New Jersey have been given the choice to register to vote in their native language.
Voter registration forms in Gujarati became available January 14, a day before the registration deadline for the February 5 Presidential primary in the state.
This is the first time a state has translated voter material in a South Asian language.
The forms could also be accessed on New Jersey State's Web site (under Division of Elections). Like all other voter registration forms, the application is addressed and postage-paid.
Beneficiaries from the move could be the 57,000 Indians who live in Middlesex County, New Jersey, and mostly speak Gujarati, according to the 2000 census, said Deepa Iyer, executive director, South Asian Americans Leading Together (formerly South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow), and Glenn Magpantay, staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
SAALT, which aims at engaging South Asians in civic and political life, works toward this goal through advocacy, community education, local capacity-building and leadership development.
AALDEF and SAALT have monitored poll sites on election day, and many South Asian Americans with limited English proficiency reported difficulty in voting, the two activists said.
They conducted a non-partisan multilingual exit poll of 1,385 New Jersey Asian American voters during the 2004 elections. In Middlesex County, they found 13 per cent of Indian American voters surveyed were limited English proficient, most of whom spoke Gujarati.
Magpantay, who hailed the new forms as a "great victory," said AALDEF has been advocating translated voter registration forms since 2003 to accommodate New Jersey's growing Asian American population, which numbers over half a million.
In New Jersey, voter registration forms are also available in Cantonese, Korean and Mandarin.
Iyer said they may push for Punjabi as a language for voter registration, should research and documentation show such a need. In an earlier interview, Magpantay said AALDEF is pressing for Punjabi interpreters on poll sites. The Sikh Coalition is AALDEF's partner in the project.
Some Americans feel there should not be the need for translated material and that everyone should learn English.
Iyer and Magpantay say American citizens who are not proficient in English are making strides in learning the language. But they added that as these voters become fully proficient they should not face obstacles to exercise their right to vote.
