§ 1-5-902 — Legislative declaration - intent

(1) The general assembly hereby
finds and declares that:

(a) Congress enacted the language minority provisions of the federal Voting
Rights Act of 1965 because through the use of various practices and procedures,
citizens of language minorities have been effectively excluded from participation in
the electoral process...;

(b) Today, the formula in section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
requires only the Colorado counties of Conejos, Costilla, Denver, and Saguache to
provide election materials in both English and Spanish and requires one other
Colorado county to provide information in Ute;

(c) Based on the 2017 five-year estimates specified in the United States
bureau of the census American community survey, there are one hundred three
thousand one hundred forty-six eligible electors in Colorado who speak English
less than very well. An estimated eighty-two thousand ninety-six of those eligible
electors live in counties where ballots and other election materials are not available
in languages other than English.

(d) Further compounding the problem of ballot access for minority language
speakers is the reading level at which Colorado's ballots are written. For many
minority language speakers the ballot is simply incomprehensible even if they
speak and read some English.

(e) Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 covers a jurisdiction when
the number of United States citizens of voting age in that jurisdiction has a single
language group that:

(I) Is more than ten thousand people of voting age, is more than five percent
of all voting-age citizens, or is on an American Indian reservation and exceeds five
percent of all reservation residents; and

(II) The illiteracy rate of the group is higher than the national illiteracy rate;

(f) Colorado does not currently expand minority language ballot access
beyond federal requirements; and

(g) Colorado has an opportunity to make the ballot accessible to more
eligible electors and provide them with meaningful access to a ballot that they are
able to read, understand, and vote.

(2) The general assembly further finds and declares that the intent of this
part 9 is to:

(a) Provide ballot access to electors throughout the state while balancing
the reality of limited state and county resources; and

(b) Expand minority language ballot access without changing or reducing
the state's existing responsibilities pursuant to section 203 of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965.

Legislative History

Source: L. 2021: Entire part added, (HB 21-1011), ch. 366, p. 2408, � 1, effective June 28.