A landmark ruling has come down in a Southern California case challenging the state’s “English only” instruction rule for ballots, in which voters say they were misled by signature gatherers and were unable to know that because they didn’t speak English. A win for voter’s rights advocates:

The trustee, Nativio V. Lopez, had come under fire for seeking exemptions to the state’s English-only instruction requirements and was partly blamed for the district’s lack of new school construction. He was recalled by 71 percent of voters.

The decision Wednesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals could be used to force election officials throughout the state to require multiple-language petitions for ballot issues, voting-rights advocates said.

It means “non-English-speaking voters have the opportunity to participate in the entire electoral process, from beginning – which often means deciding whether to sign a petition – to end, in the voting booth,” said former Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorney Thomas Saenz, who represented the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

Via / San Jose Mercury News