Courts Rule Board Of Elections Must Allow Interpreters At Poll Sites

A polling site in Crown Heights during the 2018 midterm election

The New York City Board of Elections must allow language interpreters hired by the city to be stationed inside poll sites to assist voters with limited English skills, according to court rulings in State Supreme and Appellate Court on Monday. The rulings apply to Tuesday’s special election for Public Advocate.

As part of a lawsuit filed against the city on Friday, the Board was seeking a temporary restraining order preventing the city’s interpreters from being within 100 feet of a poll site. The Board alleges the city’s interpreter program violates state and federal election law.

Under the federal Voting Rights Act, the Board is required to provide language assistance in Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Bengali at certain poll sites. The city hired additional interpreters to provide assistance in Russian, Haitian Creole, Yiddish and Polish at 48 poll sites in Brooklyn and Queens.

The Board wanted the city-hired interpreters to remain outside, relying on the section of state election law that bars electioneering within 100 feet of the polling place. Additionally, the Board argued it is their duty to create a quiet space for voters to cast their ballots, which would ensure voter privacy and ballot secrecy.

At issue was the matter of control: the Board does not believe the city has the legal authority to tell it how to run an election and including who can be inside a poll site.

On behalf of the Board, attorney Lawrence Mandelker told the court the city’s program would disrupt the quiet, contemplative space the Board creates for voters to make their decisions and cast their ballots. He also noted that any voter is allowed to bring someone to assist them at the polls, including one of the city’s interpreters. Those people just cannot be set up inside poll sites.

“We want it quiet. We want it orderly,” Mandelker told Judge Eugene Walker during Monday’s hearing. Walker pushed back. “I vote at the Park Slope Armory,” said the judge, where basketball may be played in one part of the gym, “and there are kids screaming with joy.”

“I don’t see how [interpreters] are going to exacerbate what’s already going on,” he added.

Ultimately, Walker ruled the Board failed to point to any law that would prohibit the interpreters from being inside the poll sites or provide any evidence of the harm they would cause by being there.

In the absence of anything that would explicitly bar the interpreters from the sites, Walker said he was ruling in favor of allowing these services because they, “serve the laudable goal of increasing voter participation.”

The Board appealed the ruling but a judge in the Appellate Court denied that appeal.

Earlier in the day, advocates gathered at Brooklyn Borough Hall to show to support for programs like this. The event was organized by Common Cause New York and included representatives from organizations that are part of the Let New York Vote coalition.

“We should be in the business of removing barriers, not adding them,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Election watchers are expected to make the rounds on Tuesday to monitor for any issues related to the interpreters.

Brigid Bergin is the City Hall and politics reporter for WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @brigidbergin.