As the election draws near, one key part of preparation is to ensure your documents will be translated accurately and on-time. Knowing how long your county needs for each document to be effectively translated can help to prevent last-minute stress and worry. Following election translation timelines can help to increase the efficiency of your partnership with your Language Service Provider (LSP). 

Election translation timelines: planning for translation

If you’re planning for the translation of your documents effectively, you won’t need to worry about translating your elections documents at the last minute. In the planning phases of your translation project, you should be sure to communicate with your LSP about your election translation timelines, requirements, processes, languages, and any other details that are pertinent. Engaging your LSP in the planning stage can help to create a collaborative strategy and partnership. Your LSP can help in the planning stage to identify any pending materials, prioritize materials, and sketch out a strategic plan for the timely completion of all needed content.

Election translation timelines: the documents

The time at which you’ll need to send your documents to your LSP is heavily dependent on your county’s and state’s deadlines. When you’re planning for the primaries, for example, the deadline for sending your documents to your LSP will be dependent on when your primary is. 

Ballots are expected to be sent in for translation in January. Your Secretary of State (SOS) will tell your county which candidates will appear on the ballots. This is the final piece of information that you’ll need in order to finalize your ballots before you translate them. For your election translation timelines, January and February will be the time to translate any complementary materials, such as ballot notices. All ballots needed should be returned to your county no later than February 17, so be sure to build your election translation timelines based on that. 

Election translation timelines: coordinating with your LSP

How long your LSP needs to translate a document varies by word count, but generally your LSP will be able to translate on a flexible timeline. At Avantpage, we can increase our teams to comply with tight turnaround times. Our use of Translation Memory (TM) and other linguistic assets, like glossaries and style guides, make our team incredibly efficient at completing any project on any deadline.

We can help you meet your election translation timelines. Call us at 530-750-2040 or request a free quote today.

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