King County Elections spokesperson Halei Watkins taps a 1,000-pound ballot drop box sitting in the election department’s warehouse in Renton, Washington.
“Here she is,” Watkins said. “Vote” in different languages adorn one side: “Vota,” “bỏ phiếu.”
The drop box has been freshly rewrapped, just like all 76 others around the county, with two new languages: Somali and Russian.
Upstairs, Said Shekuna – a newly-hired language access and community outreach coordinator for the county – reads over the Somali ballot one more time. It’s the last day any changes can be made before the ballots print.
He starts at the county proposition to renew a veterans’ and human services levy: “Degmada King, Soo Jeedinta Lr. 1…”
For the first time, King County will offer ballots in Somali and Russian in the upcoming primary to be decided on August 1. While many jurisdictions elsewhere in the country have provided some interpretive services or materials in the two languages, no elections office KNKX contacted – in Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Maine, D.C., Oregon or California – provides an actual votable ballot in Somali or Russian.
Tammy Patrick, CEO of program for the National Association of Elections Officials, said federal law only requires translated ballots for areas of the country with significant amounts of people who speak Spanish, Indigenous and Asian languages.
“Whether it's a ballot in Braille, that someone gets to mark their own ballot for the first time and not have to rely on a sighted person – and knowing whether or not that sighted person is actually making the mark they're saying they want them to make – or it's someone who's able to read the ballot in their own language, that is very empowering,” Patrick said.
Some California counties provide sample or “facsimile” ballots in Somali to those who ask, but voters still have to fill out an English ballot, according to Rahmo Abdi, director of organizing campaigns with the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans.
She said the sample ballots confused Somali voters in San Diego, where her organization held listening sessions.
“Our community wants to be part of California, and while the sample ballot is a start for having access to election information,” Abdi said, “comparing those sample ballots to the English ballot – referring to one, to one, you know — it's really difficult for them.”
Abdi said Somali voters still needed one-one-one assistance from her team or an English-speaking family member to vote.
That’s what makes the ballot Shekuna is proofing up in King County so special.
At the end of the first proposition, he reads the bubbles: “Ansixiyo,” (approve) or “Diido.”
Last year, Shekuna saw a job posting for a Somali language specialist at King County. He’d worked in I.T. and satellite communications for more than 20 years.
“I saw it – it was 11 o'clock at night, and the deadline was midnight to send my application. Literally,” he said. "I'm like — was it meant to be? And honestly, when I saw that, something clicked."
He decided to switch careers, and started six months ago. After his final review, the ballot he translated goes off to the printer.
“Seeing that ballot for the first time, being part of it, and then all of a sudden, the finished product, you know, reading that – it's just honestly tears to my eyes,” he said, choking up. “Both my wife and I actually changed our preference now. Even though we've been voting in English for so long.”
Primary ballots are due August 1. Voters can go in person to a King County Vote Center and get a ballot printed for them in Somali, Russian or five other languages until 8 p.m. on Election Day.
