Malden Cleared To Transliterate Names On Ballots With New Legislation

MALDEN, MA — Efforts to transliterate candidate names into Chinese characters on future Malden election ballots cleared a final hurdle last week with a bill signing by Gov. Charlie Baker.

Previously under consideration in the state legislature, the bill moved to Baker’s desk last month.

Now in effect, the law will allow Malden to display candidates' names in Chinese characters next to their Latin-alphabet names. With this legislation, Malden has become just the second city in the state to transliterate ballots, following Boston.

See also: Malden Commits To Chinese Language Election Accessibility Measures

Malden Groups Call For Passage Of Chinese Ballot Transliteration Bill

Malden Advocates, Officials Say City Improved Accessibility In Primary

Advocates have pushed for this change, saying it will improve election accessibility for Chinese-speaking Malden residents who may know a preferred candidate by a common transliterated name, rather than their Latin-letter name.

Filed in the legislature, though, the bill to let Malden transliterate ballots, for a time, slowed in its progress.

Officials in late August said the bill was specifically hung up in the state Senate.

Secretary of State Bill Galvin had separately noted concerns as recently as August about feared imprecise phonetic transliterations with regard to efforts in Boston.

“Transliteration opens up a degree of uncertainty that’s not good to have in the ballot process,” he told the Boston Globe.

Advocates and Malden legislators gathered at City Hall on Aug. 31, calling on state officials to move the city’s transliteration bill forward.

Malden Mayor Gary Christenson was at the event alongside State Sen. Jason Lewis and State Representatives Steve Ultrino and Paul Donato.

“When you cannot read the ballot, we’ve denied you the right to vote and that is just un-American,” Ultrino said at the time.

The state legislature ultimately passed Malden's transliteration bill with some amendments on Nov. 21.

Malden is subject to a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act that requires certain accessibility measures in communities where a considerable population of eligible voters speak a single language that is not English.

Where city officials have recently pushed for transliteration, advocates have, at times, criticized the city for shortcomings in other election accessibility measures, pointing to poorly translated materials or a lack of translation altogether, among other things.

Groups had been in contact with city officials before and after past elections. Parties then sat down again in recent months, hashing out a memorandum of understanding days before this year’s state primary elections detailing specific accessibility measures that Malden will take in the future.

Contacted after voting in September, stakeholders told Patch the city had made progress.

Some of those same stakeholders said there was still more to do, though, including ballot transliteration with approval from the state legislature and the governor.

Members of Malden’s state legislative delegation including Lewis, Donato, Ultrino and State Rep. Kate Lipper Garabedian all recently celebrated this bill signing, which took place on Wednesday of last week.

Christenson separately thanked area groups that advocated for greater accessibility, crediting new legislation to “a team effort between legislators, community advocates, with the full support of the administration and the City Council.”

Officials on Friday said Malden will transliterate names of candidates for district and county offices in all future statewide and federal elections. The Malden Board of Registrars of Voting will handle phonetically transliterating the names using Simplified Chinese characters to then send names to the Secretary of State to prepare ballots.