In Nevada, ballots for upcoming US elections available in Tagalog

In Nevada, ballots for the upcoming United States federal election on November 6 this year will be available in the Tagalog language, a political officer of the US Embassy in Manila said. In an interview over GMA Network's "News To Go" program last week, David Sequeira said the Tagalog ballots are a sign of the growing importance of Filipino-Americans in the US.   Sequeira said politicians are starting to pay attention to the Fil-Am vote.   “Right now there are about 700,000 Filipino-American voters [in the country],” he said.   “Nevada has 100,000 Fil-Ams living there currently. Certainly a large number of them can vote,” he added   He explained that the Nevada board “made the decision to have the ballots in Filipino to ensure that these Fil-Am voters really had all the information they need to make an informed choice.”   Sequeira said state governments can decide on whether they'd like to come out with foreign-language ballots.   “It is the decision of every state on what they want to do with their ballots and Nevada made this decision,” he explained.   Fil-Am politicians   Sequeira cited California as a state that has a large enough Filipino population to elect their own representatives.   "At the state level, if you look at California, there are three Fil-Am candidates for the state legislature,” he said. These are:

• Alameda Vice Mayor Rob Bonta
• Lathrop Vice-Mayor Christopher Mateo, and
• Alameda County Status of Women Commissioner, Dr. Jennifer Ong.

“So certainly, to get elected you’re going to have to pay attention to those voters, but it depends on every state,” Sequeira said.   There are 3,166,529 Filipinos in the US, based on the 2010 Stock Estimate of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas. - VVP/ HS, GMA News