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Native communities have spent centuries battling for voting rights. Indigeneous Americans couldn’t formally vote in every state until 1957, more than three decades after securing full US citizenship.
The campaign against this community persists, including discriminatory policies like voter ID laws and lack of polling locations on reservations. But this November, as lawmakers adapt voting to the Covid-19 pandemic, Native voters face a new hurdle: the reforms that best balance public health and democratic access will disproportionately suppress Native voting. Especially when it comes to vote-by-mail.
Households on Native American reservations, like many households in rural America, disproportionately lack mail delivery. In Arizona, only 18% of Native Americans receive mail at home – white voters have a rate that is 350% higher. As Elouise Brown, a Navajo activist and grazing officer, said bluntly: “This vote-by-mail is not going to work. Not for us.”
Lacking home delivery, many Native families rely on PO boxes. Even then, though, logistical barriers abound. Rural post offices often have truncated hours and require substantial travel. Some Navajo nation residents trek 140 miles to access postal services, traveling on roads that are frequently unpaved or only passable during early morning when mud is frozen. And due to high costs and limited availability, multiple families routinely share a single PO box.
These issues complicate vote-by-mail procedures. In many states, election officials will not send mail ballots to PO boxes or shared PO boxes. Meanwhile, the vagaries of rural mail – a problem exacerbated by Covid-19 – mean that envelopes are often delayed. Even a timely ballot may reach its destination late, though the voter did nothing wrong.
Extreme poverty adds another layer of complexity. A quarter of Native Americans are poor, with poverty rates approaching 40% on many reservations. In South Dakota, 51% of Native Americans fall below the poverty line. Housing instability is common, forcing multiple families to share a residence, and some states don’t send ballots to households with more than one nuclear family.
Paula Antoine, a Rosebud Sioux member who lives with 11 family members, says that “because there aren’t enough houses, many families double or triple up”. Housing instability also means that many people lack reliable addresses to submit.
Meanwhile, 90% of reservations lack broadband internet access. Without broadband, many voters can’t register online to receive ballots. Moreover, families without internet and cell service may face difficulties gathering basic information.
Indigenous communities, given their revenue streams, have proven particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 economic devastation. Consequently, Native voters may find themselves disproportionately disenfranchised by policies that make people with prior felony convictions pay fines or fees to regain voting rights.
For those who successfully receive ballots, however, the barriers are not over. More than 25% of Native Americans and Alaska Natives don’t speak English at home. In a typical election, these voters – a group that is disproportionately elderly – would have in-person translation at polling sites. And written translations won’t solve this problem: a number of Native languages don’t have a written form that many people use.
Earl Tulley, a community organizer and Principle of Tulley Attakai and Associates, has a 97-year-old mother, an aunt over 100, and an aunt over 94. All three elders speak only Navajo. If Earl can’t help, he said, vote-by-mail will disenfranchise all three.
Even before Covid-19, advocates were challenging discriminatory laws around transporting ballots and requiring street addresses to vote. Indigenous homes on reservations often don’t have standard US street addresses. And given how far many Native families live from polling locations or mail centers, many people rely on nonprofit organizations to pick up and drop their ballots.
Advocates have been organizing to secure early voting and protest administrative decisions that leave some Native voters 150 miles from the nearest poll. In some cases, including cases around a discriminatory North Dakota voter ID law and ballot transportation in Arizona and Montana they have won. For every court victory, though, new laws come online.
Vote-by-mail has promise to expand voting access this November, but policymakers must recognize its limitations. State officials need to consult tribes and accommodate Native voters with transportation, ballot drop-off locations, internet and safe in-person voting options. They should repeal discriminatory voter ID law and count ballots that are mailed by Election Day. And where states have financial barriers to ballot access, lawmakers must abolish these restrictions.
For centuries, United States laws and policies have suppressed Native American voting rights. This fall, policymakers have a choice. They can continue this legacy, perpetuating a democratic injustice that long predated Covid-19, or they can turn a page. The coming months will show which choice they make.
Thea Sebastian is a civil rights lawyer in Washington, DC. She is on Twitter at @Thea_Sebastian9
