Wichita ? The state has to replace its new Spanish-language voter registration cards because the cards are confusing and different from the English version, the Wichita Eagle reported Sunday.

“Whether it’s deliberate or accidental, it has the potential to be disenfranchising to many voters,” said Ernestine Krehbiel, co-president of the Wichita-Metro League of Women Voters. “It’s hard enough to get people active without having something like this.”

Also, the Eagle reported that no one speaks Spanish at the voter-information hot line number printed on the Spanish card.

Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, whose office produces both English- and Spanish-language voter materials, had the registration cards re-examined after The Eagle inquired about discrepancies between the versions.

“Clearly, some mistakes were made in the translation on that,” he said Friday.

Minority-language election materials have been required in many areas of the country since 1975, when Congress amended the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The law requires that such materials be provided when a language group exceeds 10,000 people or 5 percent of the population of the voting jurisdiction.

Ford, Finney, Grant, Haskell, Kearny and Seward counties are on the federal list of jurisdictions covered.

A spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s department said a new version of the card would be posted on the department’s Web site as early as today. The original translation was done by a group that was the forerunner to what is now the state Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission.

Thornburgh said corrected print copies would be distributed as soon as they could be produced by the state printing office.