Reader comments
Bilingual helpers sought for election

Why would this be necessary? I order to vote, one must be a U.S. citizen. In order to become a citizen, one must pass a test conducted in English which covers facts about our democracy and English comprehension. I can't imagine a reason why an authorized voter would need language help.

Hopefully these Spanish speaking "voters" aren't holdovers from a couple of years ago when Utah was giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens? As I recall about 10% of illegal aliens regeistered to vote and a partial audit showed many actual went out and voted.

This was the election when Chris Cannon and his assistant were investigated for going on a Spanish radio station and encouraging illegal aliens to violate election laws.

Lee - you are mistaken. We have a Purto Rican family that moved into my neighborhood several months ago. They only speak Spanish and are Citizens of the United States (see the 14th Amend) and are voting on Tuesday.

Lee - That's the silliest thing I have ever heard. I was listening to Cannon on the radio and his assistant made the mistake and Cannon corrected him.

Also, there are provisions under the law that do not require someone to speak and write English. If you are over 65 and have lived in the US as a legal permanent resident for 25+ years, you won't have to take the English test. That's the law.

In addition, that state audit was nowhere near scientific in its study. All it did was take the people that had been issued DL through using an ITIN. The HIGHEST number that I have ever heard quoted about the number of possible illegal voters out there was 14. I can almost guarantee that there were more voters outside of areas that had moved and went back to his or her old precinct in order to vote than there were illegal aliens.

Let's not get caught up in this silly game.

If someone lived here for 25 years, shouldn't they have the ability to understand enough English to vote? Politics aside, an understanding of English is essential to function properly in this country. Or, in your view, should we also provide things such as traffic signs in Spanish as well? Should we also require bilingual voting assistance in the myriad other languages spoken by non-Hispanic immigrants?

Several years back, the voters in Utah passed an English only law, that was to stop the State of Utah from spending any public money on having to do both English and Spanish or any other language. The law was used a couple of years back, (according to the Desert News) to force the state to take down a Spanish web site explaining how to access State services. Maybe, we should press the State on this law again.