No more voter info in Spanish

The lieutenant governor's office is suspending future plans to print bilingual voter information following a review of the state's English-only law by the governor's office.

Most of the 100,000 pamphlets printed in English and Spanish have already been distributed in advance of Tuesday's primary, said Joe Demma, spokesman for Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert.

There are no plans to produce any more fliers, Demma said. If they are needed, they'll exclude the Spanish information.

According the federal Voting Rights Act, counties must provide election information in a minority language if 10,000 eligible voters or 5 percent of the eligible voters speak that language.

Department of Justice spokesman Eric Holland said based on census information, Utah is under no obligation to provide election information in Spanish. However, San Juan County must provide information in Navajo.

Demma said his office hasn't received any complaints about the pamphlet. The decision not to print any more bilingual pamphlets was based on a recent review of whether posting information in Spanish on the state's official Web site violated Utah's English-only law. Unless it's required by federal law, the election information doesn't fall under an exemption of the law, he said.

"We didn't think anything of it," Demma said of the decision to print bilingual fliers. "Because of what's going on, the lieutenant governor decided what we're going to do is wait for the feds to come in and tell us."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com