“Voting in a new place can be intimidating for anyone, and if your first language is not English, it can be even more difficult,” said Maria Revelles, a community organizer with Faith in Florida, a nonpartisan, faith-based advocacy organization.
Kira Romero-Craft, a lawyer with LatinoJustice, said the Voting Rights Act has long required local election officials to provide language services. In established Latino enclaves in central and south Florida, voters have access to materials in their preferred language, but in outlying counties with smaller but significant numbers of Spanish-speaking residents, they are less prevalent, if not completely absent.
Using 2015 census data, lawyers estimate there are more than 143,000 voting-age citizens of Puerto Rican descent living in places such as Brevard and Manatee counties.
