{"id":71414,"date":"2016-12-08T20:13:08","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T03:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-counties-must-provide-ute-language-help-in-elections\/"},"modified":"2016-12-09T03:13:08","modified_gmt":"2016-12-09T03:13:08","slug":"southwest-counties-must-provide-ute-language-help-in-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-counties-must-provide-ute-language-help-in-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest counties must provide Ute language help in elections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"La
La Plata and Montezuma counties must provide language assistance during elections for the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes. Whether that means the counties will appoint interpreters or print bilingual ballots is unclear.<\/span>STEVE LEWIS\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

La Plata and Montezuma counties are now required to provide language assistance during elections to the<\/p>\n

On Monday, the U.S. Census Bureau published a list<\/a> of political subdivisions that must provide language assistance during elections for those who don\u2019t speak or understand English.<\/p>\n

Prior to the 2010 census, the two counties were required to provide language services to tribal members and did so by keeping a volunteer interpreter on standby, but their services were never requested, La Plata County Clerk Tiffany Parker said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, we need to meet with the tribe and determine what the best choice will be,\u201d Parker said. La Plata County wants to reappoint a volunteer interpreter and avoid the steep cost of printing bilingual ballots, as other local governments do at their own expense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to find someone to transcribe or translate all the ballot questions \u2013 and both languages would have to be on the same ballot,\u201d Parker said. \u201cI was shocked this week. We had no idea we\u2019d be doing this. It\u2019s literally based off census data, not by request. I thought we would see more interest in Spanish \u2013 not that we have a big request for that, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker said the clerk\u2019s office does not track the number of Southern Ute tribal members registered to vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to meet and work together, and do what we have to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

County and tribal officials are planning to meet next month to work out the details, which must be determined by the next election.<\/p>\n

There are about 1,500 Southern Ute tribal members. It is unclear how many speak their native language, but elders have estimated fewer than 25 are fluent, and they also speak English.<\/p>\n

Peter Ortego, attorney for the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, said Thursday he had not heard of the new mandate, but was certain the tribe would be supportive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s (Ute) very commonly spoken on the reservation,\u201d he said. \u201cThey speak it at council meetings among themselves. It\u2019s very well-preserved. I\u2019m not sure how many would prefer Ute over English, but our chairman does. There are people still out there more comfortable with Ute than with English.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe courts sometimes provide interpreters, so there is some recognition from the federal government that some people need support. This is an extension of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calls to the leadership in both tribes were not immediately returned.<\/p>\n

Four other Colorado counties must provide Spanish language assistance.<\/p>\n

The 2010 census required Denver and Costilla counties to provide bilingual ballots in English and Spanish, something Denver County has done since 2002. This year, the Census Bureau added Conejos and Saguache counties to the list, and exempted Rio Grande County, which appears to find the process flawed.<\/p>\n

In a news release from the Colorado Secretary of State, Rio Grande County Clerk Cindy Hill isn\u2019t sure why the county was included previously, telling Secretary of State Wayne Williams that \u201ca number of people with Hispanic surnames in the county do not speak Spanish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calls to the U.S. Department of Justice were not returned.<\/p>\n

jpace@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

data requires changes under Voting Rights Act<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,2681,308,629,547],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-language","tag-local-elections","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71414"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}