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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The county and city of Passaic, New Jersey, have agreed to make their election day process fully accessible to Hispanic voters and voters who need assistance, under an agreement reached today with the Justice Department.

The agreement, filed along with a complaint in U.S. District Court in Newark, resolves allegations that the county and city violated the Voting Rights Act by failing to provide Spanish language materials and assistance to Hispanic voters. Since 1984, Passaic County has been subject to the bilingual provisions of the Voting Rights Act because more than 5% of the voting age citizens are Hispanics with limited English skills, and the illiteracy rates of those citizens exceed the national illiteracy rate.

"Today's agreement will ensure that all citizens in Passaic have a voice in the democratic process," said Bill Lann Lee, Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. "Now all phases of the election process will be as accessible to the Spanish-speaking population of Passaic as they are to the rest of the people in the county."

There are nearly forty thousand Hispanic citizens of voting age in Passaic County, nearly half of whom are unable to speak or understand English well enough to participate effectively in the electoral process without assistance. Under the bilingual provisions of the Voting Rights Act, Passaic is required to translate all election-related materials into Spanish, and ensure that Hispanic voters who have difficulty reading English can receive oral assistance in Spanish during all phases of the election process, including assistance while casting their ballots on election day. The Voting Rights Act also requires that the city and county provide equal access for minority voters to all aspects of the election process.

Under today's agreement, the county and city have agreed to:

• provide all election related information, publicity, and voting assistance in Spanish, including voter registration and absentee voting materials, as well as ballots;

• work with Hispanic organizations to recruit Hispanic and bilingual pollworkers for every election, so there are Hispanic and bilingual pollworkers at every poll that has a significant Hispanic population;

• set up emergency phone lines in Spanish to answer election day questions;

• train election officials about the rights of Spanish speaking voters and the right of persons needing assistance to take a person of their choice inside the voting booth with them; and,

• make available voting machines for public demonstrations prior to the elections.

The county and city have also agreed to develop and implement a Spanish language election information program, under which they will hire Voting Rights Coordinators and devise a system for community input into the election process. The county and city have committed to including input received from Hispanic community organizations in the program, which will be filed with the court this fall.

In addition, the agreement allows for federal elections observers to be present in polling sites to ensure that the practices agreed to by the county and city are actually being followed by the election officials.

The agreement was filed today after nearly two months of negotiations. The Justice Department has worked to resolve the case without litigation because the county and the city began to make changes to their elections procedures immediately upon being notified of the Department's intent to sue and made significant improvements in the April school board and May municipal elections.

The minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act have been used throughout the country to ensure that citizens who are not fluent in English have the same access to the election process as do other citizens. The Justice Department previously has brought similar lawsuits against and reached agreements with eight counties in the Southwest regarding Native American languages, and San Francisco and Alameda Counties in California concerning the Chinese language.

The Justice Department currently has litigation pending against the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts, for failure to comply with its obligation to make the electoral process open to Spanish speaking citizens under the Voting Rights Act.

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