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February 9, 2006

Updates: Operation Meth Merchant, Voting Woes

Time to catch up on a few stories that we've reported on in past issues of Hyphen.

Here's an update on the Operation Meth Merchant story that we covered recently in issue 8. If you haven't been following, 49 people were charged in Georgia of selling over the counter meds that can be used for making meth. Forty-four of those people were Indian American. The Indian American community said, "Hello?! Racial profiling?!" The ACLU decided to step in and help.

Now, in 23 of the cases people are pleading guilty. Interestingly, many of those putting in a guilty plea are undocumented. Which means they are up for deportation. Which means, in practical terms, why fight it if you're just going to be deported? (Pleading guilty gets you a lesser sentence.)

Four Asian American organizations sued the New York City Board of Elections on Monday. Why? A whole bunch of problems with voting access for Asian Americans who don't speak English well. Polling places lacked translated materials; voting machines were being shut down early; when there were translated materials, the candidates' names were translated wrong; and people were turned away from polling places.

The good folks at Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (one of the organizations filing suit) have been keeping tabs on problems and reporting them to the Board of Elections, but not always getting a response.

As we reported in Issue 5 of Hyphen, Asian Americans have low voter participation, lower than other minority groups. With all the barriers people face at the polls, no wonder. I'm not saying that's the only reason that people don't exercise their right to vote, but it certainly creates another hurdle where there shouldn't be one.

Posted by melissa at February 9, 2006 10:52 AM