The purpose of this study was to advance the understanding of the influence geo-political events and legislation can have on the accommodation of minority language voters. Particularly, this study focused on the effects of (1) the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on minority language voters in the USA, and (2) World War I on minority language voters in Austria. We use a most similar systems design with our case studies. The results from the most similar systems design suggest that while both the USA and Austria have similar constitutional structures, are stable democracies, and have laws enacted to help protect the rights of minority language speakers (the VRA of 1965 in the USA, and Art. 8 of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955), they have developed two different approaches to linguistic accommodation for minority language speakers at elections. This study has helped to further the researchers’ understanding of the influence geo-political events and legislation can have on the accommodation of minority language voters.

中文翻译：

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语言便利和选举参与

本研究的目的是加深对地缘政治事件和立法可能对少数族裔选民的便利的影响的理解。本研究特别关注（1）1965 年《投票权法案》对美国少数民族语言选民的影响，以及（2）第一次世界大战对奥地利少数民族语言选民的影响。我们在案例研究中使用了最相似的系统设计。最相似的系统设计的结果表明，虽然美国和奥地利的宪法结构相似，都是稳定的民主国家，并且制定了有助于保护少数语言使用者权利的法律（美国 1965 年的 VRA，以及第 2 条第 1 款）。根据 1955 年奥地利国家条约第 8 条），他们制定了两种不同的方法来在选举中为少数民族语言使用者提供语言便利。