In plain language: Voters should know their English

Lemme get this straight.

To become a citizen of the United States, you must – except in a few exceptional circumstances – be able to “read, write and speak basic English.” Yet the Department of Justice this week ordered 248 localities in 25 states to print ballots in foreign languages, based on census data that detected hot spots of non-English speakers.

Virginia is one of those states. Lucky us.

Seems the most recent census showed an explosion in the number of Spanish speakers living in Fairfax County, so the commonwealth has been ordered to prepare for bilingual voting in its largest jurisdiction – even though the Constitution of Virginia requires that all voters be U.S. citizens.

Honestly. You couldn’t make it up.

This expansive order goes beyond bilingual ballots. Election officials in Richmond now must translate into Spanish about 27 different election-related forms – from voter registration applications to absentee ballot applications to polling place signs. God help them if anything is lost in translation.

The paperwork and posters will be printed and distributed throughout the county. All to accommodate what must be a tiny percentage of voters who lack the rudimentary mastery of English that’s necessary to negotiate a ballot.

How much will this bilingual blowout cost? No one knows. Yet. No one in Washington seems to care. And why should they? This is just one more unfunded mandate from the feds.

Fairfax, in case you didn’t know, is the most populous locality in Virginia, with more than a million residents and 689,813 registered voters.

According to the census, roughly 27 percent of Fairfax County’s residents are foreign-born, and 15.6 percent are of Hispanic or Latino origin.

Now, because a bunch of bean counters in D.C. spotted Spanish speakers in Fairfax – and it appears there’s no way to know for certain whether these folks are even citizens – the county is being forced to produce Spanish-language ballots.

File this heavy-handed move under the general heading of “unintended consequences” or “what happens when good laws go bad.”

The law in question is the Voting Rights Act, signed into law in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson. It was designed to put an end to a variety of discriminatory practices that intentionally suppressed the votes of some minorities, especially African Americans.

“This act flows from a clear and simple wrong,” Johnson said at the signing. “Millions of Americans are denied the vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote. The wrong is one which no American, in his heart, can justify.”

Well put, LBJ.

Fast-forward 46 years and this noble law has been twisted by politically correct politicians and federal apparatchiks to mean that citizens who have somehow failed to achieve a basic proficiency in English have a right to voting materials in their native tongues. At public expense, of course.

Fact is, in 1965, racists, thugs and election officials were acting – sometimes in concert – to interfere with the basic rights of many American citizens to vote.

In 2011, a small number of citizens have hampered their own ability to vote by failing to learn another language. There’s a simple solution for them: English classes.

Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net