Thanks to new member Craig Lutz, the Hall County Elections Board is set to vote tomorrow on whether to ratify or reject bilingual ballots — a move opposed by liberal groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
The board agreed last April to provide Spanish language ballots for county and state partisan elections, but back then the four-member panel was missing one Republican member. That meant Democrat members Kim Copeland and Gala Sheats controlled all board actions. But no more.
The Hall board members voted to adopt bilingual ballots following a move taken by Gwinnett County. But when Lutz became the second Republican to join the elections panel last month, he promised to “put the board on notice that (he) planned to rescind that motion at the next meeting” and that the issue needed to be investigated before a long-term decision is made.
Lutz, a former commissioner, underscores that the bilingual ballot expense is an unfunded mandate and that the County Commission didn’t provide funding for bilingual ballots in its fiscal year 2018 budget. Furthermore, since all voters must be citizens— and proficient English is a requirement for citizenship– opponents wonder why the elections panel felt it necessary to force the adoption of a foreign language ballot.
