Language Access at the Ballot Box

While multilingual resources should be helpful to immigrant voters, the ease of accessing voter resources in different languages varies considerably due to differences in how local election administrators choose to implement mandated language access. Political scientist Natalie Masuoka will document the variation of the ease of accessing voter resources in different languages in jurisdictions required to provide language access to immigrants. She will also examine whether ease of accessing and using language access materials generates stronger feelings of trust in government and interest in voting among immigrant voters. She will collect data on language access and will conduct a survey experiment for her study.