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Because of the city’s robust Chinese-speaking population, ballots are in both English and Chinese, which has led many non-Chinese candidates to adopt a Chinese name in an effort to appeal to monolingual Chinese voters.
2024 mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie (D), a first-time runner in politics, recently named himself 羅瑞德, which means “auspicious” (瑞) and “virtue” (德).
But that process is about to change after an inquiry from Supervisor Connie Chan, who highlighted how candidates have been taking advantage of the loose rules to more or less call themselves whatever they wanted.
“Cultural appropriation does not make someone Asian,” Chan told The Standard. “There is no alternative definition to whether someone is Asian or not. It should be based solely on a person’s ethnicity and heritage. That’s what this law is about.”
Now, the Department of Elections will follow a 2019 state law saying self-submitted Chinese names may only be used if candidates can prove that they were born with them or that they have been using the name for at least two years.
If candidates aren’t able to meet the department’s guidelines, then they will be given a transliteration-based name based on Mandarin phonetics.
Interestingly, American-born Chinese candidates may be unintended victims of the law, if they don’t have a birth certificate in Chinese that proves they were born with Chinese names.
Ahead of 2024, SF Tightens Rules for Chinese Names on Ballots
Non-Chinese candidates making a first run for office may have a tougher time.
sfstandard.com
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