August 6, 1975
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan (D-TX) led an effort to have the 1965 Voting Rights Act was expanded to include language minorities. Congress amended the definition of “test or device” to prohibit laws requiring ballots and voting information be provided exclusively in English in jurisdictions where a single-language minority group comprised more than 5% of the voting-age population. Congress also enacted bilingual election requirements, which require election officials in certain jurisdictions to provide ballots and voting information in the language of language minority groups.
