This book focuses on obtaining more detailed information about bilingual voting assistance from selected jurisdictions across the country. The book's objectives were to determine: the ways that selected jurisdictions covered under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act have provided bilingual voting assistance as of the November 2006 general election and any subsequent elections through June 2007, and the challenges they reportedly faced in providing such assistance; the perceived usefulness of this bilingual voting assistance, and the extent to which the selected jurisdictions evaluated the usefulness of such assistance to language minority voters. This is an excerpted and indexed edition.

In response to a congressional request, GAO provided information on state and local governments' expenses during the November 1984 general election on language assistance for minority voters. GAO noted that: (1) 98 percent of the jurisdictions offered minority voters some form of assistance; and (2) Hispanics received the most voting assistance. GAO found that of the state and local governments that responded to its survey: (1) 83 local jurisdictions spent an additional $388,000 to provide oral assistance to minority groups; (2) 39 local jurisdictions spent an additional $30,000 for oral assistance; and (3) 10 states spent approximately $211,000 to provide written or oral assistance directly to voters or to local jurisdictions. GAO also found that, of the local governments that responded to the survey: (1) 80 percent could not estimate the extent to which written assistance was used; (2) 74 percent could not estimate the extent to which oral assistance was used; (3) 26 of the 49 that estimated the use of written assistance said no one used the assistance; (4) 29 of the 62 that estimated the use of oral assistance said no one used it; (5) 69,000 Hispanic voters in Texas received written assistance, while 85,000 received oral assistance; and (6) most of the jurisdictions that commented on the need for oral or written assistance said that such assistance was unnecessary.