By Mary Whitfill, editor-in-chief

On Tuesday, Gov. Deval Patrick signed “An Act Relative to the Preparation of Certain Bilingual Ballots in the City of Boston” (H. 4089) requiring the state provide bilingual ballots for federal, state and city elections. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh also signed the ballot.

“Protecting the voting rights of our residents is the essence of good government,” Patrick said in a press release. “This legislation will help more residents in Massachusetts make their voices heard on Election Day.”

The Secretary of State and Board of the City of Boston will now have to provide ballots in English, Chinese and Vietnamese, as well as any other languages required by law. The legislation also provides for transliteration, a translation of certain Chinese characters to their English phonic equivalent.

These bilingual ballots will be provided in each Boston polling place where more than 5 percent of the voting age population are members of that language minority or are not English proficient. The Board of the City will determine English proficiency.

The signing of the law is being hailed as a civil rights victory for Asian Americans in Boston by some, but others say that printing foreign language ballots for those who already had to prove an ability to read and understand English for citizenship is wasteful.

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