Just so we have this straight:
- In order to vote in the United States, you must be a citizen.
- In order to become a naturalized* citizen of the United States, you must have the ability to read, write, and speak ordinary English.
Which makes me wonder about this note from Elise Hu at the Texas Tribune, who is doing a great job of reporting on today’s elections and returns:
If you haven’t heard, Department of Justice officials are monitoring polling places in five Texas counties today. Williamson, Fort Bend, Galveston, Gonzales and Wilson are hosting federal election monitors who are making sure there are enough bilingual polling workers at the precincts.
Which all begs the question — why the hell do we need bilingual polling workers in this country? I mean, other than to ensure that the illegals are allowed to vote for their Democrat panderers?
Call me a racist if you’d like — but if you can’t read the ballot in English, or understand the instructions from the poll workers in English — then you shouldn’t be allowed to vote in this country.
*If you were born and raised in the US, then there is no excuse for not knowing how to read, write, and speak English. Well, unless you attended an inner-city public school.
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I fully agree with you, Rob, but you will be branded a racist/hater/xenophobe. Our citizenship laws are enforced not at all; back when I worked for the foreign service, the government employees in Miami checking for citizenship and other immigration fraud all spoke English poorly, at best, and with one sort of accent or another. A large number of the State department employees adjudicating various visa claims and exemptions are also foreign born, and essentially deciding how our mess of immigration laws are applied. I worked at the polls in 08, but cannot bear to do so again until Texas enacts some real voter ID law, and that means more than just a license with a photo. My son merely had to sign and mail a form I printed off the internet and add his driver’s license number in order to register to vote – no other proof of citizenship or eligibility required. It’s a giant sham, and yet people still pontificate about the supposed sanctity of the voting booth. But any proposal to limit the franchise in any way is derided as a return to “Jim Crow.” I have repeatedly called, in various blog comments, for limiting the franchise to male, over-21 property owners or over 18 members of the military serving in a combat capacity. All those with a misplaced trust in the mythical “American people” don’t realize just how ignorant, and how little American, the voting populace actually is.
I totally agree.
YES
There was a time when fluency in English was mandatory. Now the language test, if it can even be called that, is a joke.
Agree – Should be All English.
After seeing the election process from the inside, I’m even more inclined to agree with this that I used to be. But for different reasons. Recruiting election workers is very difficult, and not even the Democrat establishment in Travis County is very successful at ensuring there are “bilingual” workers (incidentally, I hate that term – the gov’t MEANS people who speak Spanish, and they should say so). This extra burden on the people who run elections is frustrating and unnecessary, and threatens at times to disenfranchise voters altogether.