Native Americans Fight for Voting Rights as Primaries Continue

As Utah and Arizona vote in Tuesday’s primaries and Alaska preps for Saturday, Native Americans in those states are still battling for equal voting rights.

The presidential primaries are the first since the Supreme Court overturned a Voting Rights Act provision, allowing for an onslaught of discriminatory legislation to restrict the full access and weight of the Native American vote.

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Because these state and county laws can only be challenged on a case by case basis, the burden falls on tribal governments and members to reclaim their rights individually.

“The reality is that preclearance was necessary in some jurisdictions that have historically been bad actors,” said Troy Eid, co-chairman of the American Indian Law Practice at Greenberg Traurig law firm, to Indian Country Today.

Utah was forced by the Supreme Court to allow Native Americans to vote in 1957, after most states. The Navajo Nation is suing Utah’s largest county for gerrymandering, changing the district’s borders to include more white voters and drown out Native representation. The latest census show that the district has a majority of Native American residents, but the federal district judge redrew the lines, ignoring the latest data and help that the Navajo Nation offered.

On top of gerrymandering, the county switched to a “mail only” ballot, leading to another lawsuit that claims the change unfairly disenfranchises the Navajo Nation. Not only did members not receive their ballots, but the only open polling station was in a largely white town many hours away from the reservation. The suit, filed in February, is still awaiting a decision.

1924: Native American women allowed to vote
1956: Utah allows Native American women to vote (last state to do so)#WomensEqualityDay

— rolando diaz (@rolandodiaz16) August 27, 2015

Arizona requires voters to provide identification to cast a ballot. Since many tribal members lack an address, they put a post office box number instead – which the state often rejects, putting them on a “suspense” list.

The Apache County – which has historically violated the Voting Rights Act – took away the vote of more than 500 residents in 2014, most of them Navajo. This month, the governor also made it a felony to bring multiple people’s ballots to the polls, which tribal members are often forced to do since they live in remote communities. Over 5 percent of its population is Native American.

I'm going to predict sen sanders wins the non white vote in Arizona minorities are mostly Latino and Native American pic.twitter.com/CN2EUVRydD

— Andre (@a_dre_easy) March 19, 201

In one positive turn of events, Alaska was ordered to improve language assistance, translations and ballot access for the Yup’ik and Gwich’in communities. The Native population in Alaska has helped vote in politicians, so the continued disenfranchisement of the remote communities could remain a political tactic in this year’s heated primaries. The state is heavily Republican, but 14.7 percent of its population is Native American.

While Washington has no standing lawsuit on Native American voting, it has kept voter restriction laws like felon disenfranchisement that disproportionately affect minorities and the poor, especially its large Native American population.

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“Native Americans have been the most suppressed in our society when it comes to voting rights,” Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community in Washington State and president of the National Congress of American Indians, told Indian Country Today. “We were the last to be recognized as citizens of our own country and even then our elders were turned away from voting booths.”

Turnout among Native Americans is among the lowest of any demographic group, and they are often ignored by presidential candidates. Though both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have courted their vote, Native American news imply more support for the latter, who last Tuesday was the first candidate to visit Apache land.