Gwinnett County will soon be making voting materials available in more languages. Last week Gwinnett Commissioners approved a budget that will fund voter materials and sample ballots into four Asian languages.
According to the AJC, the translations are important in Gwinnett County, where nearly one-third of all the state’s Asian voters reside. The 2019 Census survey said that 60,000 residents speak Vietnamese, Korean, Mandarin or Cantonese in their homes.
DeKalb County was the first Georgia county to voluntarily provide voter information in Korean in the fall of 2020. Korean Americans petitioned Gwinnett commissioners to follow their lead.
The budget will mean that everything that isn’t an actual ballot will be provided in multiple languages. Actual ballots will still be provided in English and in Spanish as is required by federal law. Other materials include sample ballots, registration paperwork, and other informational materials about voting and working at the polls.
This year’s Gwinnett budget contains $4.4 million in expanded election services, including the new translation initiative and eight new elections division positions. Also covered by that funding is a pay increase for poll workers and postage for absentee ballots.
