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A sign displaying voter registration information in English, Spanish and Filipino. For the first time ever Clark County must translate all election materials into Filipino, the national language of the Philippines, which combines the indigenous language of Tagalog with Spanish and English influences. In 2002, Clark County elections were conducted in Spanish for the first time.
By Tovin Lapan (contact) 
Thursday, July 26, 2012 | 2 a.m.
May Manahan, elections operations specialist for Clark County, holds a sign that reads "register to vote" in English and Filipino. In October the federal government informed the county that, based on demographic data, elections materials must be translated into Filipino.
Review leads to change of 'review'
After the primary elections in June, the Clark County registrar of voters received some complaints that the translation of ballots into Tagalog was too formal and difficult to understand for some people who are more used to conversational Tagalog.
May Manahan, who was hired in January by the county to perform the translations, has been going over all of the materials to adjust the translations ahead of the November general election.
One example from the primary was the translation for the word “review.” Manahan said she originally used the word “suriin,” which she called a “real Tagalog” word.
However, after a committee of Southern Nevada Filipino-Americans met earlier in the year to determine which of the dozens of languages spoke in the Philippines to use, they settled on Filipino.
Filipino was named the national language of the archipelago in 1987 and is considered to be a combination of Tagalog, the most prominent indigenous language, and English and Spanish words that have seeped into the language over centuries.
It was decided that “tingnan muli” was a more modern and colloquial phrase to use for “review.”
Now, Manahan has to analyze similar details on a variety of election materials, from ballots to voter guides and polling station signs.
Sun coverage
The first time Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax was confronted with publishing election materials and ballots in another language, he was prepared for it.
It was after the 2000 census, and the Spanish-speaking population in Southern Nevada had been booming for years. Anticipating that the new census data would trigger federal benchmarks regarding voting materials and the use of languages other than English, Lomax started organizing early and purchased new, bilingual voting machines.
Lomax was caught off guard, however, when, in October 2011, his office was notified that elections materials must now accommodate the growing Filipino population in Clark County.
From the start, the process raised questions. Approximately 100 languages are spoken on the archipelago, and there are four languages with at least 7 million speakers and 13 with at least 1 million speakers. Lomax had no one from the Philippines on his staff and did not know where to start.
“They just tell you that you have to accommodate this certain population, and it’s up to us to determine the most appropriate language,” Lomax said.
First, Lomax reached out to Filipino-American organizations in Southern Nevada to help him tackle the question of which specific language to use.
“There are many language used in the Philippines,” said Amie Belmonte, president of the Filipino-American Political Organization with Equal Representation and who was on the committee of about 15 people assisting Lomax. “We chose Filipino, which is also known here as Tagalog, because that is the national language and the one that you can expect the most people to know.”
The Philippines’ 1987 constitution made English and Filipino official languages. Filipino is considered to be a combination of one of the predominant indigenous languages, Tagalog, mixed with Spanish and English words that have infiltrated the language through centuries of colonization.
Under the federal Voting Rights Act, an elections department must add a language when 5 percent of the voting-age minority population is not proficient in English, or when 10,000 people from the voting-age minority population are not English-language proficient.
Clark County was one of several southwestern, urban areas that added a new Asian language to its ballots this election season. San Diego County, which already offered Spanish, Vietnamese and Tagalog, added Chinese. Los Angeles County conducts elections in eight languages, including two new languages added this year: Cambodian and Hindi.
In January, Lomax had to convince the county to lift a hiring freeze so he could bring in a translator, May Manahan, to get the translation work done. The county has also hired bilingual workers to man polling stations and is still looking for others fluent in Tagalog.
Manahan has spent the past few months translating everything from polling station banners and signs to sample ballots and voter guides. She also must record the audio version of the ballots for the vision impaired.
“I have done a lot of outreach with Filipino-American groups to let them know we are doing this,” Manahan said. “I think even when people may even understand the English, having ballots and materials translated into their language encourages participation. Some people are intimidated by the process, especially the elderly. This way they have a better understanding of everything in front of them.”
In June, Lomax and his team rolled out the Filipino ballots and election materials for the primary election. There were some complaints about the word choice being too formal on the Tagalog translations, and some phrasing is being adjusted ahead of the general election.
“We are making adjustments with some of the terminology based on feedback we got after the primary that some of the language had been too academic and should be simplified,” Manahan said.
From 2000 to 2010, Nevada’s Filipino population soared 142 percent. There are 98,000 Filipinos in Nevada, making up 3.6 percent of the population. The next largest Asian immigrant population in Nevada is Chinese, with just under 29,000 in the state. In Clark County, the 86,000 Filipinos comprise 4.4 percent of the population. When it comes to elections, those may seem like insignificant figures, but in 2004, George W. Bush won Nevada by a mere 2.6 percentage points.
Since 2002, all election materials have been printed in Spanish and English and voters have received bilingual sample ballots and voters guides. Now, postcards are being mailed to voters to determine their language preference. So far, 180 people have asked for materials in Tagalog.
“My observation is that there isn’t a huge demand for this,” Lomax said.
Jim Tucker, a Las Vegas attorney and voting-rights expert, said it was not uncommon for demand to lag early on in the process as word is slow to get out that the service is available. He offered the example of King County, Wash. (which includes Seattle), where Chinese was added to ballots in 2002.
“They got a smattering of requests for translated ballots,” Tucker said. “What they found was that most of the Chinese-speaking population didn’t know that assistance was available. By 2006, the number of requests for Chinese ballots had spiked by more than 5,000 percent.”
Tucker added that even though data indicated just over 10,000 of Southern Nevada’s Filipinos were eligible to vote and not proficient in English, translated ballots have a tendency to increase participation among all members of the immigrant group as some simply feel more comfortable operating in their native language.
Those in the Filipino community in Southern Nevada who aim to increase civic participation, like Belmonte, hope to use the change as a catalyst for mobilization.
“I think doing this really makes the Filipino community more involved and more included in the electoral process,” Belmonte said. “In the Philippines, the election process is corrupt and people feel like their voice doesn’t even matter. Through this translation, where ballots are in the Filipino language in a foreign country, they feel like, ‘Wow, our voice really matters.’”
For an immigrant to vote, they first must become a naturalized citizen, and Filipinos in Nevada are completing the process at a relatively high rate.
While there are more than double the number of people living in Nevada that were born in Mexico than in the Philippines, in 2011 there were 1,668 naturalizations in Nevada of Filipinos and 2,035 naturalizations of Mexicans in the state, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The article reads that English is an official language of the Philippines, so one would think English would satisfy the feds. Just keep the language in English. If people come to this country and become citizens they should learn English, especially the little it takes to vote.
Probably aren't US citizens if they don't have limited skills needed to vote in english. If not US citizens they are ineligible to vote. That comes from my Philippina spouse.
What next? Klingon?
Speaking of Filipino voting... Here is a look at the former president rigging her election.
PGMA = President Gloria M Arroyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPln-yPn-...
tagalog now, where's Croatian?! why stop at three languages? sorry, but ya need English to get along in the States, so live with it.
Comment removed by moderator. - -
Now having been raised and living within the Filipino community in Hawaii for a very long time, I can say if the Manong or Manang cannot speak English they are not U.S. citizens and are not allowed to vote. Majority of Filipinos are multi-languaged so English is a taught second language in the Philippines. The U.S. had several bases in the country for a very long time so the majority of the people spoke English. If they cannot read or speak the English language then they shouldn't be allowed to vote. The same goes for the Hispanic's.
When I became a citizen I had to prove that I could read, write and speak English fluently. Have they changed the requirements for citizenship?
Everybody seems so worked up about immigrants and how they need to learn English to live here, but when I see all the moronic grammar mistakes made in the comments I think a lot of you could use a remedial English class.
People too lazy or stupid to write proper English complaining about people who don't know English? Oh, sweet irony!
This is ridiculous. People who can't be bothered to learn English should not be allowed to vote, period.
Anyone who is a citizen of the United States and eligible to vote should already have a sufficient command of the English language. Naturalized citizens must meet a language requirement. And anyone who was born here should know English by the time they are 18.
That said, I'm in favor of requiring ALL potential voters to be able to pass the same test the immigrants must take in order to register to vote. I'll wager a significant number of people whose families have lived here since the country's inception couldn't pass it.
As a Naturalized US Citizen, adding Tagalog language on Election Ballot is kind of insulting to us Filipinos. We learned English in the Philippines school since Grade One. We came to the US because we know how to speak and understand English. We became citizen by passing the given test in English. I don't think there is a need to add Tagalog in the Ballot; it sounded corny anyhow!
This is absurd. The ballot and materials should be in english only. I have not problem with Latin Folks or islanders, but give me a break. If you want to live here and be a citizen then learn the language or dont even bother coming. That seems cold I know but im tired of our government spending our money on stuff like this.
Just another example of laws and regulations that conflict. As has been mentioned, it is a requirement to have a working knowledge of English to be an U.S. citizen. So why is the Voting Act requirement using the total of all nationalities to require election material to be in a minority language?
This is just a waste of taxpayer money because almost all of these Filipinos speak or understand enough Enlish to vote. It is also a requirement to be able to understand, read, and write in English before getting US citizenship so it should not be a problem. All it takes to vote is being able to read the instructions and if one can't read in Enlish then most likely one can't read in Tagalog. Lastly, most of them speak different dialects and can understand English better than Tagalog so it is cheaper to hire a translator for the very few that really need them in order to vote.
If you can't speak or write in English you shouldn't be able to vote. Simple as that. More government waste.
As a proud American I find all this hyperbole about English only disheartening, folks need a real etymological understanding of our first amendment.
It is very clear every Fourth of July where our Government's origins are from, but in no way does that signify any allegiance to the English idiom or to any people. We speak American in this land from the mountains to the prairies, from sea to shining sea and while some folks are limited to only one language by no means should that limit the rest of us.
American is the word, say it with me, say it loud say it proud, we speak American, a cocktail of lingos, argots, and were we to revert to Jim Crow Laws, near a chance to vote would some get. Quit thinking America speaks English, and in the near future this "wolf crying" will be mute as the computer applications of tomorrow will allow full empowerment of the masses with the strike of a key.
New Americans have come from places far and near with hopes and dreams of tolerance and inclusion, the marginalization of the political process by way of communication or lack thereof is insidious to their Constitutional pledge. This failed position of only English shows ones milk teeth gnawing at the red, white, and blue fabric of our nation. America is unlike any other nation about this point -- language, on the face of the earth, may God continue to bless America.
We are a nation of immigrants that have come from all over the globe seeking a better life. Accordingly,immigrants have brought their cultures and languages with them and America is truly a richer country overall as a result of these confluences of culture. The problems of a dynamic multi-cultural society arise however when there is no commonality in providing services as well as social interaction among the different cultures and their languages . A standard of communication must exist in order for a free society to work efficiently. Over 300 languages are currently spoken in the US. Is it reasonable/practical to ask every American to learn them and/or to provide government resources in EVERY language? Celebrate our ancestries, our languages, our unique cultures; however a common thread of communication is needed for communication between citizens to effectively provide services and compete in a global environment.
In a given private business scenario with a customer and service provider it is equally important for both parties to find a common language to facilitate negotiating a transaction. Without mutual understandings of the spoken/written word both parties will find it difficult to interact/contract, and possibly business will lay unfruitful. A broken business process exists when either or both parties refuse to find the enabling linguistic tool for a trade to be conducted. Hence, business will dictate the language or dialect which is to be used within that culture.
Cultural shifts occur seamlessly every day in the free markets via vernacular expression. While the business core may change slower than its outlying tentacles it remains true that over time the dynamic business model will adjust incorporating the new forms of communication.
The thirteen colonies all had their own manner of communicating and therefor created the first amendment requisite of the constitution to ensure the integration of all people to participate in the new government. Why now 2012 years later are we trying to counterman one of this country's basic principles. Time has no bearing upon this doctrine other than to allow for new forms of communication, be that telephones, or the internet.
Intolerance on the other hand is also alive today as it was 2012 years ago. While bias may not seem apparent to those in power or positions of trust it is not diminished when applied to citizen with a rightful expectation of their government. Contemplating an America that is exclusive and intolerant as some might have it is disconcerting for me as a veteran.
A recent thought is that requiring English as the only way of providing a pathway to citizenship may be unconstitutional.
What a crock. When my ancestors came to this country, they learned the English language to fit into their new home. I would expect the same of all United States citizens.
Bottom line: America doesn't have an official language. Filipino is just as valid a language in America as English. If a certain percentage of the citizenry understands Filipino better than English, so be it.
Another few years and English may not even be the dominant language. Hell, the way things are going, white people will no longer be the majority by the end of our lifetimes.
Comment removed by moderator. Personal Attack