Clark County ready for bilingual elections

Tuesday, July 30, 2002 | 9:10 a.m.

The Census Bureau added Clark County Friday to a list of counties throughout the country required to conduct elections in more than one language, but county officials say they are prepared to make the change.

Clark County was added to the list because the 2000 Census Bureau shows that more than 5 percent of the population speaks Spanish only, which requires the county to provide language assistance under the Voting Rights Act amended in 1992.

The list, published in the Federal Register, names hundreds of jurisdictions required to meet the needs of single-language minority groups in their local elections, but Clark County may be one of few that is prepared to make the change.

Last year Clark County decided to conduct this year's elections in both English and Spanish, Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said. Election materials, voting guides and ballots are available in both English and Spanish, and those requiring assistance will be able to vote on bilingual machines.

"Even without a federally directed requirement, we recognized the need to provide voting information in Spanish," Lomax said. "The population has grown so that more than one out of five residents is now Hispanic and many currently have difficulty speaking and reading English. Because of that, the county made the decision to forge ahead with this project."