US Presidential Election 2020: Telugu appears on ballot boxes in California

Telugu, one of the fastest growing languages in the US, has appeared on ballot boxes for the US Presidential Election 2020.

Milan Vaishnav, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Endowment, shared a picture of a ballot box on Twitter. The box contains instructions for voting in English, Telugu, Hindi, and five other languages.

In another tweet, Vaishnav mentioned that the photograph was taken in California.

The Santa Clara county has the requisite forma available in 14 different languages including 6 scheduled Indian languages. https://t.co/a2ibthkEqn

— Rakesh Dubbudu (@rakeshdubbudu) October 20, 2020

A study published by the Center for Immigration Studies in 2018 said Telugu was the fastest growing language in the US.

"Of languages with more than 400,000 speakers in 2017, the largest percentage increases from 2010 to 2017 were among speakers of Telugu (up 86 percent)," the study said.

The study said in the US, 415,414 people speak Telugu at home, which is less than those who speak Hindi (863,077), Gujarati (434,264), and Urdu (507,329).

Among the Indian-Americans who work in the IT sector, many come from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Ahead of the election on November 3, both Presidential candidates - Donald Trump and Joe Biden - have made efforts to appeal to the Indian-American community in the US. The Democratic Party even released digital advertisements in 14 Indian languages.

A New York Times report pegged the number of Indian-American voters at approximately 2 million.

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