Thread: Judge: Iowa voting forms violate official English law

Judge: Iowa voting forms violate official English law
By WILLIAM PETROSKI and NIGEL DUARA • REGISTER STAFF WRITERS • April 3, 2008


A Polk County District Court judge has ordered Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro to stop using languages other than English in the state’s official voter registration forms.

Judge Douglas Staskal ruled in favor of U.S. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, who sued state officials last year, contending they were violating the state’s English-language law. He brought the suit against Gov. Chet Culver, who previously served as secretary of state, and Mauro, contending they had placed illegal voting forms on the secretary of state’s Web site.


The dispute began shortly before Election Day in 2006, when King demanded that Culver remove voting information in languages other than English from the Web site. The site offered information in Spanish, Laotian, Bosnian and Vietnamese.

Non-English voter forms were removed from the the state's Web site late Thursday afternoon.

King, a former state senator, said the materials were illegal because under an English-language law authored by King and signed by Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack in 2002, all official government communications must be in English.

Culver, a Democrat, had said the English-language law included a provision that allows for "any language usage required by or necessary to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, or the Constitution of the state of Iowa."

Attorney General Tom Miller then concluded that Culver had authority to offer the forms in foreign languages.

Staskal, in a ruling dated March 31, wrote that a state administrative rule permitting the use of other languages on official voter registration forms "plainly conflicts" with the 2002 statute. He called the rule "an arbitrary act in violation of law" and declared it "void in its current form as an improper exercise of agency power."

Mauro said today he respected Staskal’s ruling, but he was “deeply disappointed.â€

REALLY IT IS JUST NOT THAT HARD TO LEARN ENGLISH. YOU HAVE TO BE A CITIZEN TO VOTE WHICH TAKES MANY YEARS. ANYONE INTERESTED IN VOTING SHOULD BE INTERESTED IN LEARNING THE LANGUAGE. IF THE EFFORT TO LEARN ENGLISH IS TOO MUCH HASSLE THEN THAT PERSON SHOULD NOT EVEN BE A CITIZEN.