Political candidates in San Francisco have long used both English and Mandarin names on ballots to help win over the city's considerable Chinese population. But that tradition may soon be discarded, according to The San Francisco Standard.
"After an inquiry from Supervisor Connie Chan, the Department of Elections has decided to follow a 2019 state law saying self-submitted Chinese names may only be used if candidates can prove that they were born with them, as many Chinese immigrants or Chinese Americans were, or they have been using the names for at least two years," according to the report.
If that’s not the case, candidates will then be given a transliteration-based name, which are often wordy and based on Mandarin phonetics.
The decision may affect how the name of some political candidates, like Daniel Lurie, appear to voters. Lurie's choice for his name in Chinese includes characters that mean "auspicious" and "virtue," according to the report, while a phonetic approximation of his name — "DAN-knee-er LOO-lee — doesn't have any special meaning.
Supervisor Chan has led the policy to make it more difficult for political hopefuls to self-submit "Chinese names," with the exceptions being candidates who can prove that "they were born" with the name or have been "using the name for at least two years."
"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."
NEWSOM TRASHED FOR ADMITTING SAN FRANCISCO WAS CLEANED UP FOR CHINA SUMMIT: 'SLAP IN THE FACE'
The "specific incident' that spurred the Department of Elections policy change was when "Natalie Gee (who is Chinese American) accused a non-Chinese candidate, Emma Heiken, of using the same Chinese given name in her campaign," according to the outlet.
The Standard previously reported in May that politicians give themselves "flowery Chinese names" on purpose to "court" voters.
San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston, "who is of German descent," according to The Standard, "requested to appear on the ballot as "潘正義," which means "Justice Pan" in Chinese. Previously, he was "迪恩‧普瑞斯頓" on the ballot, a long and transliteration-based Chinese name."
Chan and the San Francisco Department of Elections did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
