The 1975 Voting Rights Act Extension and Expansion worked to permanently ban the use of discriminatory voting practices through tools like literacy tests and poll taxes and create protection for language minorities in the United States which are listed as “American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Natives or of Spanish heritage.” These protections include voting ballots and oral instructions in an individual’s native language as well as any registration materials, notices, or mail in ballots provided in an individual’s native language. Examining the 1975 act itself provides important context for the response to the act. Many spoke in favor of permanently extending the mentioned sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act but spoke out against the inclusion of bilingual voting materials. The reasons for this negative response ranged from the cost of printing extra ballots to whether bilingualism should be allowed in any circumstance in the United States.
The 1975 act itself promotes a very important aspect of the issue. The document directly states that language minorities have been treated unfairly at the polls and that the substandard education provided to language minorities no doubt impacts literacy and voting rates. This is a very significant portion of this document. Given that the United States government has a history of sweeping the problems of minority communities under the rug, the fact that this document openly states that minority groups have continually been prevented from reaching a higher form of achievement cannot be ignored. This document helps us look into the political motivations for this act on top of the documented social reaction to the act itself.
“The Congress finds that voting discrimination against citizens of language minorities is pervasive and national in scope. Such minority citizens are from environments in which the dominant language is other than English. In addition they have been denied equal educational opportunities by State and local governments, resulting in severe disabilities and continuing illiteracy in the English language. The Congress further finds that, where State and local officials conduct elections only in English, language minority citizens are excluded from participating in the electoral process. In many areas of the country, this exclusion is aggravated by acts of physical, economic, and political intimidation. The Congress declares that, in order to enforce the guarantees of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, it is necessary to eliminate such discrimination by prohibiting English-only elections, and by prescribing other remedial devices.”
Congress.gov. “Text – H.R.6219 – 94th Congress (1975-1976): An Act to amend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to extend certain provisions for an additional seven years, to make permanent the ban against certain prerequisites to voting, and for other purposes.” August 6, 1975. https://www.congress.gov/bill/94th-congress/house-bill/6219/text.