A Vietnamese-speaking election worker has been ordered out of Dorchester polling places after the Menino campaign accused her of telling voters to back challenger Michael Flaherty.

The woman has been dismissed for the voting-booth infraction, according to Paul Afonso, a campaign attorney for Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

“She was a translator who in her official capacity was trying to help Vietnamese voters, but she was telling (them) to vote for Mr. Flaherty,” Afonso told the Herald today.

Flaherty, getting out the vote in Roslindale, called the allegation nonsense.

“I’m going to win the Vietnamese community based on my relationship with Vietnamese voters,” said Flaherty, who added he’s questioning how many City Hall workers are at the polls today and not at work.

The interpreter, whom the Herald is not naming until officially charged, was assigned to Ward 13 in Dorchester.

The bilingual worker, assigned to the Catherine F. Clark Apartments on Dorchester Avenue, was first accused of “influencing” voters, said Geraldine Cuddyer, Election Department chairwoman.

Cuddyer said the worker was dismissed to “err on the side of caution.”

Also today, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund complained to the Election Department after a monitor said there was no Vietnamese interpreter at a polling site at the Annapolis Apartments in Dorchester, according to Glenn D. Magpantay, who is director of the agency’s Democracy Program.

Magpantay said there were 12 Vietnamese-speaking voters who needed interpretation services. The city told the AALDEF that while there was no Vietnamese interpreter there, the polling inspector speaks Vietnamese, Magpantay said.

“It’s in a large Vietnamese community and there are no Vietnamese interpreters,” he said.

The AALDEF is sending monitors to 29 polling locations.

Laura Crimaldi contributed.