Screenshots of English & "Spanish" versions of MyVote.WI.gov, 8/31/16
Voting laws in Wisconsin seem to be changing from week to week. Once in a while it’s because of a federal court standing up for small-d democracy… but more often it has been a constant drumbeat of GOP “reforms” —like strict Voter ID— that we are assured have nothing to do with partisan advantage, racial animus, or voter suppression.
In any case, a Wisconsinite could be excused for being uncertain of the particulars for the upcoming election. With changes coming fast and furious, one might seek to get the answer straight from the horse’s mouth — the sparkling-new State of Wisconsin Elections Commission. (Abolishing the state’s elections board and replacing it with two new partisan commissions just 4 months before a presidential election was a totally reasonable idea, you guys.)
Fortunately, there is a handy website — MyVote.WI.gov — where you can get the latest nuts-and-bolts info on voting in Wisconsin. Stuff like finding your polling place, how to vote absentee, look up whether you’re registered or not, and of course the specifics on the Voter ID requirements.
That is, only if you’re comfortable getting this information in English...
There’s a button towards the bottom to select the en Español version of the page, but as you can see, big chunks remain in English. (The 8/31/16 version is archived in the Wayback Machine for posterity.)
More concerning than failing to translate entire sections though, is that the Spanish version of the page fails to mention anything about Voter ID (in any language). That’s a hell of a big oversight… and it’s not just a failure to translate. The “Spanish” version provides totally different (and erroneous) information:
Partial credit for the Lorem Ipsum? Not Spanish, but not English either.
Note the first item on the “Spanish” side reads “You can Correct an Election Day Provisional Ballot until 5pm on the Friday before the election.” Just hop in your Municipal Clerk’s DeLorean and correct your provisional ballot 4 days before you likely even heard of a “provisional ballot.” (BTW, clicking on that item takes you to an English-language page about requesting an Absentee Ballot; nothing to do with provisional ballots.)
Somebody somewhere had to create the, um, unique content for the Spanish-language page and (1) forget to translate it into Spanish, (2) miss the obvious time-traveling, (3) miss the Lorem Ipsum placeholder, and (4) forget to mention Voter ID. Laziness would have simply resulted in Voter ID info remaining en inglés. Something else happened here.
My high-school-level Spanish is quite rusty, so maybe some more fluent Spanish-speakers can check for other issues with this page and let us know in the comments. I did note that all the links at the bottom of the page like “Contact Us” or “Find my Municipal Clerk” are broken on the Spanish version, but work just fine on the English version.
I don’t have to tell you that getting everyone out to vote this November is absolutely crucial, and that providing different information to different groups of people is wildly unfair. Keep in mind that we’re only about 2 months out from Election Day — and if you’re not registered or don’t have Photo ID, you need to be working on it now.
Please share this far and wide, and hopefully we can make sure everybody has the correct info. And please support efforts in your community to get everybody registered and out to the polls. There are a ton of people and groups like Voces de la Frontera doing great work out there, and this is the time they really need volunteers. Your county party is another good place to get connected to registration and GOTV efforts.
Top of the Spanish version of MyVote.WI.gov — Closer than the rest of the page, but not quite.
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