NEW YORK – Aswini Anburajan, FI2W reporter

Throughout New York City there have been reports that voters have been asked to show identification, in violation of New York election law.

Laura Matthews, a second year law student at the City University of New York, said that voters in Jackson Heights were asked to show ID and were told it was because of the difficulty of understanding their names.

Matthews said the other main problem in immigrant neighborhoods was the lack of interpreters, and that voters for whom English is a second language felt pressured at the polls to try and get through the materials quickly.

Unlike in Harlem, however, poll watchers are thronging the election sites checking to see that voters’ rights weren’t violated.

Students like Laura are volunteering through the Asian American Legal Defense Fund.

Ashwini Anburajan is Founder and CEO of a Social Data Collective, a private data marketplace that allows consumers to access, control and monetize their data. Social Data Collective allows consumers to trade data from a variety of sources for high quality products and services offered by brand partners. She was previously Director of Partner Development at Buzzfeed, and at Outcast prior to that. She has created cutting edge thought leadership and has advised some of the largest names in media on their social publishing strategy, including USA Today, New York Times, Hearst and CondeNast.