PHOENIX —
On a recent sweltering Saturday in Phoenix, about 40 Native American leaders and community organizers gathered in an art gallery, the back of which had been decorated with signs proclaiming “Native Americans by Harris-Walz.”
Mark Kelly, Democratic senator from Arizona, quickly sized up the audience. Anyone undecided? Silence. Is everyone planning to vote in November? Hands went up. “Early!” a woman shouted.
“Friends, this is not rocket science. “If it was rocket science, I could help,” the former astronaut said, using his oft-repeated joke. “This election could fall to Arizona. And Arizona may depend on how many Native Americans show up to vote. “You all can make a difference.”
Across Arizona, Native American activists are rallying, mobilizing and registering their communities to vote with an urgent message: They could be the deciding factor in a very close election.
“We are thinking today, but thinking about our future,” said Susanna Osife, 22.
(Fe E. Pinho / Los Angeles Occasions)
“We are thinking today, but thinking about our future,” said Susanna Osife, 22. As Miss Gila River 2024, Osife is focused on registering young people to vote. “Our land, our water, our education, our healthcare. … We have to make sure all of this stays safe for the future of our community.”
Susanna Osife works on her computer to log into a Native American voting website. Osife was born and raised in the Gila River Indian Community and has been an ambassador to the community to get Native Americans to vote.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
Democrats are flooding Arizona to attract new and undecided voters in Native American communities before Monday, the last day to register. He united states census says that indigenous people make up about 6% of the population, a significant margin in a state where President Biden won by just 10,457 votes in the 2020 election, and history shows they lean Democratic.
Voting data analyzed by High Country News show that voters on tribal lands strongly supported Biden in 2020. Navajo Nation congressional districts ranged from 60% to 90% support for Biden, according to the analysis, and some Tohono O’odham Nation congressional districts They reached 98%.
For some Indigenous activists, their political efforts are not limited to electing Vice President Kamala Harris. The work comes at an important time: 2024 marks the centennial of the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted indigenous peoples American citizenship. Arizona continued to restrict your right to vote until 1948when two Yavapai men sued because they were denied ballots because they lived on a reservation, outside state lines.
Allie Redhorse Younger, left, and her father, Frank Younger, tour the Navajo Nation in an effort to register people to vote.
(Courtesy of Taylor Bennett-Begaye)
For people like Allie Redhorse Younger, it’s important to preserve that history.
“If there’s one thing I know about our Native youth, it’s our deep, deep reverence for our elders, our ancestors and our history,” said Younger, a 34-year-old activist who rode her horse Woman Knight on a six-day tour. tours the Navajo Nation to register people to vote.
He noted an indigenous value passed down from generation to generation: that “our actions today will have an impact on the next seven generations.” Therefore, when he encounters young people who distrust voting because “this is not a system designed for us,” he agrees with them.
“But it’s the system we live in,” said Younger, who reminds young people of their responsibility to the next seven generations. “If you want to think about [voting] like a sacrifice, think of it that way. Our ancestors also had to make sacrifices. I know they didn’t want to sign those treaties, but our people were dying and their agenda was to exterminate and starve us, so our ancestors had to make those sacrifices and sign those treaties, even if they didn’t. wanna.”
As governor of the Gila River Indian Community, Stephen Roe Lewis stays busy with his usual duties, launching new water projects and taking photos with students at scholarship dinners. But lately it has been struggling to organize voter registration events.
“Many of these events happen every day or every other day,” he said.
Stephen Roe Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community, walks the Gila River Interpretive Trail in Sacaton, Arizona.
(Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
Registering Native Americans to vote can be complicated in Arizona, where some reservation residents have no physical addresses and many voters have to travel dozens of miles to cast their ballots. Arizona is also the only state that requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote. For indigenous peoples, particularly older ones, who may have been born at home, citizenship documents can be difficult to obtain, although tribal IDs are sufficient.
High-profile Democrats are arriving to help. National Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison spoke at the Gila River rally. Inside Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Indigenous woman in a presidential cabinet and “all aunts’ aunt,” as one community leader put it, spent a recent weekend on the Navajo Nation.
Registering people to vote works best when Indigenous people do the outreach, Lewis said.
Allie Redhorse Younger registered nearly 200 people for her in-person voting campaigns during a six-day tour of the Navajo Nation.
(Courtesy of Taylor Bennett-Begaye)
“Especially for Native communities where we are unique, we know the etiquette and the protocols…sometimes past campaigns have taken a misstep,” Lewis said. “What I have seen is an incredible amount of coordination among the 22 tribes.”
Lewis found that one way to attract future voters is to hold typical reservation events that draw crowds, with food, music and art. At a recent registration drive, more than 200 people gathered at the Gila River Multi-Purpose Center while a band on stage played a thumping beat.
A line of people snaked along one wall, waiting for trays of fried bread with beans and chili. While they waited, attendees helped themselves to “Indigenous Voters” hats and tote bags. In the center of the room, two artists were painting on canvas; one painting showed the word “vote,” the V formed by two feathers held in an old man’s hand.
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1. An event to promote voting included “Sky Vote” T-shirts for members of the Navajo Nation. 2. “Indigenous Vector” t-shirts for members of the Navajo Nation. 3. Artists paint on canvases during voter registration event. One painting displayed the words “Vote: Protect Our Lands.” (Photos of Religion E. Pinho / Los Angeles Occasions)
Kelly Whitman, the Gila River events coordinator who planned the campaign, first looked to her own family for new voters. At a recent family dinner, Whitman asked her niece, Javonni Molina, 24, and her boyfriend, Justin Darrian, 24, if they were registered. Molina said her grandfather had taken her to register as soon as she turned 18 and told her, “You can’t complain if you don’t vote.” But Darrian wasn’t registered yet.
Molina took him to the community center, where he sat at a table filling out the form while she and Whitman looked over his shoulders approvingly. Darrian committed to voting in November, although he said he was “50/50” on which presidential candidate to choose.
“Oh, I’m so proud of you!” Whitman boasted. “I made a change today.”
He was one of 25 new voters registered at the event.
Getting people to register is a hurdle; The next thing is to get them to vote, and activists have seen their work pay off. Voters on Navajo and Hopi reservations cast nearly 60,000 votes in 2020, compared to fewer than 42,500 in 2016, according to a Associated Press analysis.
This year, Navajo Nation leaders voted to change the date of their tribal elections to align with the Arizona primary. The goal of increasing participation was clear in its resolution“Arizona is a swing state and the number of Navajo voters in the state is significant.”
One Native American candidate who prevailed in the July primary was Jonathan Nez, a former president of the Navajo Nation who is running for Congress in Arizona’s 2nd district.
Former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez gestures to the crowd during the 2023 inauguration of his successor, Buu Nygren, at Fort Defiance, Arizona. Nez is now running for Congress.
(Felicia Fonseca/Associated Press)
Some Indian voters are more inclined to cast their ballots in local elections than in state or national elections because they see candidates at community events and can meet them in person, said Rosetta Walker, a Maricopa County deputy clerk who frequently works to register voters. youths.
Phoenix college students “will drive five and a half hours to vote in their chapter elections, but they will not fill out a ballot for the federal election,” Walker said.
Local candidates, as well as issues, can boost voter turnout in November’s presidential race.
A farmer drives his tractor to turn soil as dusk falls over the desert landscape of the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. The rural locations of some Native American communities can be problematic for voting.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
That’s the hope for Nez, who is running against Rep. Eli Crane, a Republican who made his name during his first term by joining other members of the Freedom Caucus to unseat former California Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker. If he wins, Nez would become Arizona’s first indigenous member of Congress.
“I know people think that because of the presidential race they are going to help us,” Nez said of Harris’ campaign. For him it’s the other way around. “We are actually helping them.”
