This has been a catastrophic year for the Navajo Nation. The coronavirus pandemic has spread like wildfire through the sprawling reservation, infecting thousands and killing hundreds. Still, Diné, the Navajo people, voted in huge numbers this election, and largely in favor of Joe Biden, helping turn Arizona, a longtime deep red state, blue.
For Allie Young, a 30-year-old activist and citizen of the Navajo Nation, it’s been emotional to watch her community vote in force despite these challenges.
Many Native American reservations occupy vast, rural swaths of land, and residents often lack access to basic resources like clean water, internet, or reliable transportation. One in three Native Americans live in poverty, and voter turnout among Indigenous voters has historically been lower than that of other racial or ethnic groups, partly due to the burden of casting a ballot.
“If you’re Native [on a reservation], you gotta drive 40 miles, and hopefully the ballot will be there, and hopefully it will reach the secretary of state on time,” said O.J. Semans, an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and the cofounder of the Native voter advocacy group Four Directions.
People of color across the country have long been disenfranchised at the ballot box, but those issues are “magnified in Indian Country because of the distance, the poverty, the transportation, the roads,” he told BuzzFeed News.
Considering the long-standing barriers that Native American voters have faced at the polls, and the added safety fears due to the pandemic, seeing them turn out, especially in Arizona, is nothing short of remarkable, Semans said.
“I’m really happy with the turnout based upon the inconveniences that Natives had to face in order to participate,” he said.
Semans also pointed out that the sizable Native American population in Maricopa County — 2.8% of its residents identify as Indigenous, according to census numbers — where Trump has performed better with mail ballots there (though not enough to beat Biden) than he has in other states.
“We have a lot of urban Indians in Maricopa County,” Semans said, pointing to the Indian Health Service office in Phoenix, which oversees programs in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.
The Native vote, including in the Navajo Nation, is not a monolith; even the Navajo government leaders openly supported different candidates — its president, Jonathan Nez, endorsed Biden, and its vice president, Myron Lizer, endorsed Trump at the Republican National Convention. But Semans said Indian Country tends to lean left despite Democratic candidates historically having ignored and failed Native American voters to their detriment.
“I can tell you that for being the most left out by the Democratic Party, there has been no race more loyal to the Democratic Party,” Semans said. “Throughout Indian Country, they’ve always been Democratic strongholds but completely ignored.”
Source: Buzzfeed News; 11/13/20
