Tribal leaders talking to an informal meeting of U.S. senators who belong to the Indian Affairs and Rules committee last week said they have been “systematically denied access to fair representation” over the years.
Systemic barriers to representation include language, restrictions to mail-in ballots and an inability to travel to polling places. One speaker insisted that these problems are caused by “blatant discrimination,” according to a report by Cronkite News.
Jackson Brossy, executive director of the Navajo Nation Washington Office of the Navajo Nation, declared, “We should not have to talk about blatant discrimination,” he said. “Here we are in 2018. We still face many, many unacceptable barriers to voting for Navajo people.”
Senator Tom Udall said, “To this day … many states and local jurisdictions have found new, more insidious ways to impose barriers on Native access to the ballot box.” He added, “from voter ID laws to inadequate polling and registration sites, to lack of availability of Native language ballot materials.”
Besides the Navajo, there were representatives from Alaskan tribes, Arizona and Massachusetts, to name a few. Yet they faced remarkably similar barriers.
Julie Kitka of the Alaska Federation of Natives said her people face language issues that make it hard for them to understand ballot initiatives. This is made harder because translations are often inadequate, she said. “How can Natives understand what the initiative is?”
Brossy noted that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 calls for language barriers to be torn down. “Our folks who speak Navajo, but are still taxpayers in the system, should be able to vote,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s still some work to do in that area.”
Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico Secretary of State, said low and high tech remedies exist for some of these problems. One solution is to have someone fluent in the native language to read ballot measures to those with language issues. Or provide a recorded translation.
Higher tech solutions include audio translations as part of electronic voting machines.
Brossy added that sometimes there aren’t enough places for Navajo people to vote. This is a real problem for residents of remote reservations, he said. In 2016 there were only two voting locations in Arizona’s Apache County.
Because Navajos often lack street addresses and instead use post office boxes, this can complicate registering to vote. “We want folks to be able to vote regardless of where they live,” he said. “We want to make sure there are no hiccups in the next election.”
