SANTA CLARA COUNTY elections officials have taken down a Vietnamese language billboard in San Jose’s Little Saigon neighborhood, after passing drivers noticed it advertised the wrong election date.
Until this month, the billboard on Story Road read “Bầu cử sơ bộ (Primary election)” and “Ngày 5 tháng Ba, 2024 (March 5, 2024).” It should say “Bầu cử tổng quát (General Election)” and “5 tháng 11, 2024 (Nov. 5, 2024).” The translation flub from the Registrar of Voters has Vietnamese American residents groaning about an avoidable error — especially as county elections officials invest in voter outreach to non-English speakers and people who speak English as a second language.
“It is disappointing to see mistakes like this when it is vital that we do everything we can to get turnout from communities of color,” Huy Tran, executive director for the Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network, told San José Spotlight. “With everything that the county has invested into language access, this kind of mistake should not have happened.”
Truc Viet, a Vietnamese media commentator and writer with Viet Wave, said this kind of error can be dangerous in a community plagued by online misinformation. She thought the billboard was photoshopped when she first saw a picture of it on Facebook.
“I could not believe that the registrar would be that careless. It indicated that we’re treated like an afterthought, even if San Jose has one of the largest Vietnamese populations nationwide,” Viet told San José Spotlight. “Local leaders always talk about language sensitivity and especially equity — I don’t see any equity in this billboard. I see negligence.”
County apologizes, promises correction
Registrar of Voters spokesperson Michael Borja said his office is fixing the billboard.
“We were aware of an oversight in the billboard graphics, and we sincerely apologize to the Vietnamese community for the error. The incorrect billboard has been taken down and replaced with a Spanish version,” Borja told San José Spotlight. “We are correcting the Vietnamese version and it will be installed above the Spanish billboard soon.”
Borja didn’t respond when asked how long the billboard had been up or whether the error prompted a review of the registrar of voters’ procedures for approving translated materials.
Multilingual voting resources became a hot topic this year when the county’s $250 million budget deficit threatened ballot translation services for Japanese, Hindi, Korean and Khmer language voters. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors backed away from the cuts after public outcry.
“It is disappointing to see mistakes like this. … With everything that the county has invested into language access, this kind of mistake should not have happened.” Huy Tran, Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network
More than 1,200 voters cast ballots in those languages in the March primary election, and the total number of registered voters in these languages has increased to 68% over the last four years, according to a June statement from Supervisor Otto Lee’s office objecting to the cuts.
County officials didn’t respond when asked for data on Vietnamese voter turnout in the March primary. The county issued more than 32,000 Vietnamese language ballots in 2022 according to county data — with Vietnamese voters submitting more than 15,000 ballots.
Viet questions how county elections officials will learn from the error.
“Of course they will take responsibility and apologize and fix it. But why do we have to speak up in the first place?” Viet said. “They need to look at quality control and guarantee that it will not happen again.”
Contact Brandon Pho at brandon@sanjosespotlight.com or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This story originally appeared in San Jose Spotlight.