Every Arcadia City Council election ballot mailed to thousands of voters this week contains erroneous instructions to vote for up to three candidates. There are only two Council seats up for election. The erroneous instructions are limited to the Chinese language translation on the sample and actual ballots. There are five candidates, two of whom are Chinese-American.
by Scott Hettrick
City officials were scrambling this week to hastily prepare postcards advising of the error in the same multiple languages as on the ballot and send them to every single voter in Arcadia. Any such mailing to voters cannot target specific voters or be limited to a single language, according to election law. Translations for the ballots and other city documents are contracted out to a company that provides such translation services for cities nationwide. The election ballot two years ago correctly noted that there were three Council seats available.
An announcement of the issue was made at the fourth and final candidates forum tonight (Friday, March 16), with attendees being advised that they must vote for no more than two candidates. In a potentially fortunate coincidence, this forum was co-sponsored by the Arcadia Chinese Association and was expected to draw several hundred attendees, a large percentage Chinese. But there were only about 50 people in attendance at the Community Center, a large number of whom were Caucasian.
This is the first City Council election to be conducted without polling precincts, but rather by mail only. Voters have less than a month to return their ballots, which must be received no later than April 10 (received, not simply postmarked by April 10). That means that voters who may have received their ballots in the mail as early as Tuesday or Wednesday, could have immediately filled them out and put them back in the mail the same day. The City was alerted to the error on Thursday.
Deputy Chief City Clerk Lisa Mussenden told ArcadiasBest.com Friday that any voter who may have already submitted their ballot marked with three candidate choices should contact City Hall to alert them of the faulty ballot. That ballot will be tagged invalid and a new ballot will be provided to the voter. The phone number at Mussenden’s office is 574-5410, or voters may report their concern in person at the City Clerk’s Office in City Hall at 240 West Huntington Drive. Even voters who vote for the proper number of one or two candidates have the option of dropping off their ballots at the City Clerk’s office in person rather than putting them in the mail. The City Clerk’s Office drop-off center will be open Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. On alternate Fridays the hours will be 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (City Hall offices will be closed March 23 and April 6.) Hours on Election Day, Tuesday, April 10, will be 7 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Many who learned about the error expressed concern that no matter what the City does to try to minimize the impact of the error, the validity of the entire election could potentially be challenged.
This is not the only language issue in the campaign so far. The ACA’s partner in tonight’s forum was the American Association of University Women of Arcadia. For the past week, at least one member of  the AAUW has been expressing concern to candidates, city officials, and others in the community that a press release issued by the ACA regarding the forum was encouraging residents to vote only for the two Chinese candidates. The AAUW member and others also expressed concern about a Chinese translation to be conducted in real time during the forum off to the side of the room.
The English language version of the press release said nothing of that sort. Several people who saw the original Chinese language version of the press release, which was used as a basis for stories in Chinese media, said there was nothing recommending any specific vote. No one asked by ArcadiasBest.com had been able to ascertain a copy of the press release reported to have advocated voting for only two Chinese candidates. It’s believed that whomever saw that release may have been looking at a faulty English translation.
The ACA, whose mission is to integrate and unite Chinese and American cultures in Arcadia, and which donates tens of thousands of dollars to Arcadia institutions each year, such as the Arcadia Public Library and schools, has gone out of its way at every step to avoid even a perception of any favoritism.
Both of these incidents are very unfortunate for all involved, and show that, for all our progress, negative perceptions and suspicions of people of different cultures still linger just below the surface with many residents, and Arcadia still has a long ways to go in being careful to guard against any ill feelings sparked solely by a lack of sufficient attention to communications.
— By Scott Hettrick