Senate Rejects Amendment to Alter Bilingual Voting Rights Act1974-01-01unknownhttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NKC/1.0/enghttp://congressarchives.org/record/CAC_CC_001_4_132_2_0012Senator Henry Bellmon's amendment to exempt counties with dominant English-speaking Indian populations from bilingual elections under the Voting Rights Act was rejected by the Senate in a vote of 26-59. Bellmon argued that the act made false assumptions about the language dominance of American Indians and that without his amendment, certain counties in Oklahoma would be required to hold bilingual elections without assurance of necessity.