Monoligual Ballots, Please

A group in the House is targeting multilingual ballots. Good for them! I argued for all-English ballots last year in this piece.

I understand the concerns of those who believe that legal immigrants won't be able to decode the complicated propositions on California ballots (it's a challenge even for native English speakers!). But if the English of these legal immigrants -- welcome as they are -- isn't good enough to read the ballot, it certainly isn't good enough to keep up with dialogue and debate of American political campaigns, which are conducted and written about and reported on overwhelmingly in English. It's important that all voters have access to the same information (without counting on friends to translate or foreign language reporters to interpret), so that everyone is working from a common base of knowledge in making electoral decisions.