KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
—
The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas unanimously voted Wednesday to pass a resolution asking the Wyandotte County Election Commissioner and Secretary of State to make Spanish-language election materials available to voters starting with elections in 2025.
That resolution reads as follows:
“Adoption of a resolution for the Kansas Secretary of State to work collaboratively with the Wyandotte County Election Commissioner to make Spanish-language election materials available to voters starting with elections in 2025.”
It’s not the first time groups have collaborated to request Spanish-language election materials in Wyandotte County. In fact, multiple groups sent a letter in August 2023 to Michael Abbott, the Wyandotte County Election Commissioner, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR), Cross-Border Network, El Centro, Equality Kansas, Latino Community Network, Loud Light, Mainstream Coalition, MORE2, and the Voter Network.
KSHB 41’s Charlie Keegan attended an October 2024 presentation of over 1,000 petition signatures asking for more election materials in Spanish.
Federal law requires certain election offices to offer ballots in other languages when:
- More than 5% of voting-age citizens in a jurisdiction are members of a single language minority group and do not “speak or understand English adequately enough to participate in the electoral process."
- If the rate of those citizens who have not completed the fifth grade is higher than the national rate of voting-age citizens who have not completed the fifth grade.
Six counties in Kansas meet those requirements. Wyandotte County does not, but eight counties in Kansas voluntarily provide election materials in languages besides English, including Shawnee, Haskell, and Wilson.
Wyandotte County is on trend to fall under federal guidelines in 2026, but that leaves thousands of people unable to participate until then, these groups argue.
ACLU Kansas’ executive director, Micah Kubic, spoke Wednesday in support of the resolution, sharing Census data, including:
- There are at least 4,000 Wyandotte County residents who are citizens, of voting age, eligible to vote, but who have limited English proficiency; 70% of that group of eligible citizens are Spanish-speaking.
- The next largest language group, Burmese, makes up 7% of the total.
- There are another 15,0003 eligible citizens—voters—who are minimally proficient in English but not as their primary language.
- There are another 41,000 residents whose primary language is not English and who are not yet eligible to vote, either because of youth or citizenship, but who will someday be on the path to civic engagement.
“This need for language access is not speculative, it is not theoretical, it is real,” Kubic said in his address.
Census data also shows over 30 percent of Wyandotte County is Hispanic or Latino, and 28 percent of residents speak a language besides English.
The ACLU says while Wyandotte County does not meet the federal threshold for these materials, it’s unfair to deny these materials due to the size of the county in comparison to the counties that do qualify with much smaller populations: Finney, Ford, Grant, Haskell, Stevens, and Seward Counties.
Kubic wasn’t the only one there in support of the resolution.
The commission chambers were filled with dozens of individuals there to support the charter, including Thomas Alonzo with Equality Kansas and Briana Ayala with El Centro, Inc.
It’s not just about what Alonzo stands up for, it’s where.
"Qualified voters should have as much opportunity as possible to be able to vote, to be able to understand what they’re voting for," Alonzo said. "California, Chicago, Florida have Spanish materials too, and we need to do that too for our citizens. We all know how difficult it is in English, can you imagine a language that you’re not proficient in or even don’t speak very well?"
He narrowed that scope even further at St. Thomas Church.
That’s where KSHB 41’s Rachel Henderson spoke with him Friday.
“My grandparents came to this country and settled here in Armourdale,” Alonzo said. “I was baptized in this church that was a gathering point of the Latino community here in KCK. Even though the church is closed, it’s morphed into a social service agency which I think is also part of how we all helped each other when we came to this country.”
It also mattered where he was Wednesday night: the UG commission meeting.
“They took action on this, and it makes me proud,” Alonzo said. “I was very proud to be there.”
So was Ayala, who has been actively involved in mobilizing voters with El Centro, something she says has taught her about what a vote means.
“It’s your own voice,” Ayala said. “It’s the change you want to see. It’s the representation you want to have.”
She says it's disappointing to see the state's lack of action on this issue, but she's hopeful for the outcome she and others have been fighting for.
"Our voices have not been heard, and I think that’s still happening to this day," Ayala said.
When KSHB 41 reached out to the election commissioner for comment, he directed us to Secretary of State, Scott Schwab’s office.
They emailed a statement that read: “We believe in following federal laws and guidelines.”
“We have to try to accommodate all of our voters so they can be part of the democratic process,” Alonzo said.
It’s a fight he, Ayala and none of these advocacy groups plan to give up on or stop urging leaders to address.
“The more attention it gets, the more they’re going to have to take action at some point because it’s not right,” Alonzo said.
—
