Voting Rights Act allegations rebuffed

Several Boston politicians sprang to the city's defense yesterday at the news that the US Department of Justice is suing the city for violating the rights of Hispanic and Asian-American voters with limited English skills, while others expressed concern.

The complaint, filed Friday, alleges that the city failed to translate election announcements, instructions, and other materials into Spanish and failed to provide enough translators for non- English speakers, in violation of the Voting Rights Act despite repeated warnings to do so. The lawsuit also accused the city of ''improperly influencing, coercing, or ignoring the ballot choices of limited English proficient Hispanic and Asian-American voters."

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who has not commented publicly on the lawsuit, yesterday directed all questions to the city's chief lawyer, Merita Hopkins, who has disputed the Justice Department's allegations.

Several politicians interviewed yesterday said they had heard of no problems at the polls during recent elections, even areas of the city with dense immigrant populations.

State Representative Jeffrey Sanchez of Jamaica Plain, whose district includes a heavy concentration of Hispanic voters, said he was ''blown away" by the allegations.

''We have people that work at the polls, things are translated, nobody's taking any positions for any candidates inside," he said. ''And I know the [voter] numbers are up in my district because I see it."

State Representative Linda Dorcena Forry of Dorchester, whose ethnically diverse district also includes Mattapan and Hyde Park, said she heard of no complaints during her special election last spring.

''We have Vietnamese, Cape Verdeans, Caribbeans, Haitian-Americans, Latinos, and during the election, I did not hear of people not being able to vote or feeling they were left out of the process or that there was a lack of translators," she said. ''I'm not sure why this is taking place right now."

There were some politicians, however, who said they were concerned yesterday.

At-large Boston City Councilor Felix Arroyo, the only Hispanic member of the council, said he is having his staff review past complaints in light of the lawsuit.

''If the city, by any chance, did something wrong that affected the ability of anybody to exercise their right to vote, that has to be corrected immediately," he said.

Menino's mayoral challenger, Maura Hennigan, yesterday accused the mayor of perennially neglecting to supply sufficient translation services, which she said indirectly helped the mayor and the council candidates he supports. When a polling station has no translator, she said, volunteer supporters of the candidates step in to help, and too often they push their own candidates.

''The mayor has created a vacuum, and by creating that vacuum he has enabled abuses in the election laws," she said.

Hennigan offered no specific examples to back up her claims, except to say that there have been past allegations of translators trying to influence votes, and that council candidates the mayor has quietly backed in the last at-large council race did well in Chinatown even though they skipped a debate there.

Hopkins, the city's chief lawyer, yesterday repeated her criticism of the Justice Department lawsuit, which does not point to specific instances where voters' rights were violated.

''We have asked them to tell us what the problems are -- if there are any -- and we have not been told," she said. ''This is not the way government should be operating. We should be working with each other. We shouldn't be wasting time and money suing each other."

Globe correspondent Michael Levenson contributed to this report. Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.