Dual language ballots create doubt
Confusion surrounds Georgia county’s data
Amid an announcement from Georgia election officials that the state will conduct a hand recount of its nearly 5 million ballots before certifying results, social media posts are claiming a discrepancy in one county between ballots and registered voters.
In a Nov. 7 Facebook post, political commentator Sara Gonzales shared a screenshot from Gwinnett County, Georgia’s Election Summary Report. Three lines of text within the image describing the number of precincts reported (“0 of 156”), number of registered voters (“408,268 out of 581,467”) and ballots cast (“811,836”) are circled for emphasis.
“Gwinnett County: 581,000 registered voters 811,000 ballots cast,” Gonzales writes.
Gonzales’ post has garnered more than 4,100 reactions, 2,500 shares and hundreds of comments expressing outrage.
“That’s all the dead people,” Alisha Holmes commented, “They voted aswell (sic).”
“And we are supposed to believe there is no voter fraud, really?” wrote David Corrado.
USA TODAY has reached out to Gonzales for further comment.
Language affects number of ballots
According to the county’s communications director Joe Sorenson, 811,836 ballots cast reflects a single ballot being printed twice, in English and in Spanish.
The reason for this bilingual ballot is due to Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states and political subdivisions to provide language minority groups not fluent in English with materials or information relating to the electoral process in their native language as well as in English, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Language minority groups includes those who speak Asian, American Indian, Alaska Native or Spanish languages.
For a state, county or county subdivision to qualify, the number of limited English proficient U.S. citizens of voting age within a jurisdiction and language group must:
● Be more than 10,000 in number. h Be more than 5% of all voting-age citizens.
● Exceed 5% of all reservation residents on an Indian reservation.
● Have an illiteracy rate higher than the national illiteracy rate.
Gwinnett County is the only county in Georgia that has to comply with Section 203, Sorenson told local NBC News’ affiliate 11Alive, given it reached the threshold for its Latino or Hispanic population at 21.7%, per 2019 census data.
“Our ballot has to be built differently in order to meet our Spanish language requirements from Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act,” Sorenson explained to Reuters.
Every Gwinnett County resident therefore receives of a ballot consisting of two sheets of paper – one in English and one in Spanish – and either one, or both, are returned to the county. Regardless, federal law requires the county to count both sheets in its election summary result.
“For every other county in the state, the ‘Ballots Cast’ field reflects the number of ballots cast,” Sorenson said to Reuters, acknowledging Section 203 makes that different, and confusing, for Gwinnett County.
“We’re the only county in the state that has to comply with Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act. Gwinnett can’t remove the field in question from our report even though it creates confusion.”
Our ruling: Missing context
We rate this claim MISSING CONTEXT, because without additional context, it might be misleading. Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act ensures language assistance to individuals not proficient in English by providing electoral material and other information in their native language. There are thresholds a state, county or other jurisdiction must reach to be required to comply with Section 203. Gwinnett County meets the thresholds due to its sizable Latino or Hispanic population. A single ballot is thus printed on two sheets, one in English and one in Spanish, which are both counted in the county’s election summary results and cannot be omitted under federal law. There are no extra ballots cast, but this is why it appears there are more ballots than registered voters in Gwinnett County.