State won’t offer ballots written in Yup’ik

MARY LOCHNER

July 17, 2008 at 4:07PM AKST

The state of Alaska cannot legally be required to provide written voting materials in Yup’ik.

The ruling, made Tuesday, July 8, by U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess, was handed down just before a three-judge panel heard arguments on whether the state of Alaska and the city of Bethel should be required, by court order, to provide Yup’ik-speaking voters language assistance in upcoming elections.

The ruling was based on a section of the Voting Rights Act that declares that, if a language is “historically unwritten,” a state would only have to provide oral voting assistance for speakers of that minority language.

In the late 19th century, Russian missionaries developed a form of written Yup’ik with Cyrillic. A more widely used version of written Yup’ik with English letters was developed by missionaries of the Moravian church in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the early 20th century.

Modern written Yup’ik was developed in the 1960s by native Yup’ik speakers working in collaboration with linguists at the University of Alaska. The modern form replaced the old Moravian standard. It was disseminated in Yup’ik-English bilingual curricula and is used to this day.

When delivering his ruling, Burgess said that, in interpreting the definition of “historically unwritten,” he considered that the statute does not concern whether a language is currently written but whether it was a written language in the past.

He said that “one or two generations” of Yup’ik speakers using written Yup’ik did not constitute a historically written language.

After the ruling, the three-judge panel heard arguments on what, if any, help to Yup’ik-speaking voters the state and city of Bethel could be required by court order to provide, in time for primary elections Aug. 26 and general elections Nov. 4.

Plaintiffs in the suit are four Yup’ik elders and four Yup’ik village traditional councils in the Bethel area. Their legal representation set forth a list of criteria that would, in their view, be sufficient assistance provided by state and city government for Yup’ik speakers to be able to vote this fall.

At the top of the list is the provision of federal observers to document whether the help that governments offer to Yup’ik-speaking voters is implemented and whether it is effective.

The Native American Rights Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union are representing the plaintiffs.

At the July 8 hearing, Natalie Landreth, counsel for NARF, said that, while the state has recently ramped up efforts to help Yup’ik speakers to vote, “What they have done is inadequate.”

She added: “We’re seeing bits and pieces of the voting experiences being offered. They’ve stepped forward. But they’re not quite there.”

Sarah Felix, counsel for the state of Alaska, argued a court order was unnecessary.

She said the state of Alaska recently hired a Yup’ik translator to coordinate statewide assistance to Yup’ik speaking voters and that it now plans to provide a translator in all 38 voting precincts in the Bethel census area in time for the primary and general elections.

These translators would read aloud an approved written translation of the ballot to Yup’ik-speaking voters, Felix said.

Felix also said the state would let Yup’ik speakers know that help will be available to them so that they can vote. She said the state would do this by placing advertisements on local radio stations in Yup’ik and English and by making and distributing a poster..

When asked by U.S. Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown whether the poster advertising help at the polls for Yup’ik speakers would be printed in English and Yup’ik, Felix responded, “We will have that poster in English.”

She added her understanding of Burgess’ ruling was that the state could not be required to provide voting materials that were written in Yup’ik.

“How hard would it be to simply print that poster in Yup’ik?” McKeown asked.

“I don’t know how hard it would be, but I know the policy decision needs to be made by the lieutenant governor,” Felix said.

Gabriel Guest, vice president of the Kasigluk Traditional Council — which is one of the plaintiffs in the case — observed the hearing along with several others who had traveled from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta for the court proceeding.

He said there are about 10 elders in his village of 600 who speak only Yup’ik and don’t speak or understand any English, but many more whose first language is Yup’ik and who understand and speak it much better than English. Guest estimated about 80 percent of adults in his village fall in that category.

He said there have never been any translators assigned to his voting precinct to help Yup’ik speakers, but sometimes bilingual members of the community will volunteer to help an elder who wants to vote.

He said that, if a translator were on hand to read aloud a Yup’ik version of the ballot, it would make voting much less confusing to many people in his area.

He said he is especially concerned about those elders who only speak Yup’ik.

“Most of them don’t vote,” he said. “I think if this thing passes, they would vote.”

Mary Lochner can be reached at (907) 348-2438 or (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.