A communication transmitted from Louis A. DePasquale, City Manager, relative to Awaiting Report Item Number 20-62, regarding providing interpreters at polling locations

1 CITY OF CAMBRIDGE BOARD OF ELECTION COMMISSIONERS 51 Inman Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 ▪ Telephone [phone removed] ▪ TTY: [phone removed] Fax: [phone removed] ▪ Email: Elections2@cambridgema.gov ▪ Website: www.cambridgema.gov/election COMMISSIONERS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Ethridge A. King, Jr. Tanya L. Ford-Crump Larry W. Ward Charles J. Marquardt ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Victoria A. Harris Lesley Waxman To: Louie DePasquale, City Manager From: Tanya L. Ford-Crump, Executive Director Date: December 14, 2020 Re: City Council Order #4 of November 16, 2020 – Translators on Election Day The City Council has requested that City Manager “confer with the Law Department and Election Commission on providing interpreters…at future elections and report back on this matter to the City Council by January 25, 2021”. The Cambridge Election Commission is committed to making sure every legally entitled voter has the opportunity to vote. As a City, we strive to make information accessible to all of our voters, including voters that may speak or read languages other than English. The Election Commission has provided bilingual poll workers at some of the polling locations on Election Day who are available to assist voters that may speak or read languages other than English. The Wardens and Clerks at other polling locations are instructed to call those individuals if a voter needs assistance. The bilingual poll workers are fluent in Spanish, Farsi, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. Bilingual staff at the Election Commission also provide Spanish and Haitian Creole interpretation over the phone. The City of Cambridge has 11 Wards, 34 Precincts and 30 polling places. Due to the number of precincts and/or polling places it could be a challenge to have an interpreter at each precinct or each polling place who is fluent in more than one language such as Spanish, Amharic, Bengali, Haitian Creole, Chinese, Portuguese, and American Sign Language. Challenges include: • Determining which languages are necessary at each polling location – the Election Commission does not have data on which languages are spoken by voters in each precinct; • Recruiting and hiring a sufficient number of people who speak each language to cover all necessary locations;

2 • Providing additional training for interpreters above and beyond the election worker trainings already provided; and • Providing space at each polling location for interpreters, especially if some precincts would require multiple interpreters to cover multiple languages. This would be especially challenging if social distancing requirements are still in place in future elections. In response to the number of polling locations and the variety of languages spoken in Cambridge, the Executive Director of the Election Commission is investigating the option of telephone interpreting services. The poll workers would call the service and provide the voter with instant access to over-the- phone interpreters. These services can provide a wide range of languages to the number of polling locations designated in the City as needed. We anticipate having a plan for interpreters in place for upcoming elections.