By ANTHONY IAN CRUZ
Malaya
January 18, 2008

FILIPINO-American voters in this year’s US presidential elections face various forms of discrimination which may prevent many from casting a vote for the successor to President George W. Bush.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), a 34-year-old civil rights organization, identified five obstacles to Asian-American participation in the elections.

According to Margaret Fung, its executive director, these are insufficient language assistance, racist and poorly-trained poll workers, incomplete voter lists and denial of provisional ballots, improper identification checks, and confusion in locating polling places.

AALDEF monitored the conduct of the 2006 elections in 172 poll sites in nine states, and conducted an exit poll of over 4,700 Asian-American voters.

The AALDEF report, “Asian American Access to Democracy in the 2006 Elections,” documented violations of the Help America Vote Act and other incidents of anti-Asian voter disenfranchisement in 25 cities in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Washington, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.

The group said they received more than 200 complaints of “voting barriers” including “improper or excessive demands for identification, often only from Asian American voters.”

“In our survey, 954 voters were required to present identification. The vast majority of them, 78 percent, were not required to do so under the Voting Rights Act and Help America Vote Act. AALDEF received complaints and personally observed these improper and sometimes excessive demands for identification in almost every state,” said the report.

It also said that a number of “Asian American voters’ names were missing or incorrectly transcribed in voter lists at poll sites.” While US law requires that these voters be given provisional ballots, poll workers denied voters this right.

AALDEF also received reports that “poll workers were hostile and made racist remarks toward Asian-Americans and voters of limited English proficiency. Poorly-trained poll workers made voting difficult and frustrated voters.”

The report also said “poll workers were unable to direct voters to their proper poll sites or precincts” and cited a case in Philadelphia where “one voter was driven to tears after being sent to several places and given no correct addresses.”

“In New York, a husband and wife were improperly sent to different lines at different election districts within the same poll site,” the report added.