This year marks 100 years since the Snyder Act was signed into law, granting citizenship and voting rights to Native Americans. But a century later, many Indigenous voters still face significant barriers at the ballot box.
The Native American Rights Fund (NARF), in Boulder, Colorado, has been working to raise awareness about these challenges through its Native Voices, Native Vote initiative.
The initiative aims to address the obstacles that hinder voter participation in Native American communities.
Allison Neswood, a staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, said Native voters face a range of issues.
“These barriers are structural, you know, rooted in the history of colonialism,” explained Neswood.
Long travel distances to polling places or post offices can create challenges for many tribal communities. In addition, the lack of traditional addresses on reservations complicates voter registration and often prevents homes from receiving mail, including ballots.
Neswood says many Native Americans also encounter discrimination at polling places.
“Tribal IDs might be rejected,” said Neswood. “There may be a police presence at polling locations that's really uncomfortable for Native voters. Leading up to the election, (we) put together an election protection program that was intended to help Native voters navigate some of these barriers on election day.”
The program recruited law students and attorney volunteers to assist Native voters and serve as poll watchers.
“There wasn't a five-minute period where we didn't get calls from our volunteers throughout the day who were stationed at polling locations across six states where Native people were voting,” Neswood said.
The NARF volunteers were in Nevada, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, New Mexico, and Wisconsin.
“We had Native voters turned away because they were wearing a Native vote shirt, or police presence or sheriffs at the polls,” explained Neswood. “And I think it was just a reminder for us that it's really important to be paying attention to these election barriers or voting barriers in Indian Country and showing up for our voters and helping them through the process.”
The Native American Rights Fund said it will continue advocating for state laws to address the challenges Native voters face, while also tackling these barriers through the courts and other strategies.
“Both before this election and now coming out of it, we really recognize that the deep structural problems require more than litigation or a supplement to litigation in the form of legislation that invests in solutions to these problems,” Neswood said.
Neswood emphasized the importance of improving voting access on reservations, such as by using tribal buildings as voting sites. She also highlighted the need to strengthen the use of tribal IDs for voting and to expand ballot collection in remote communities.
Copyright 2024 Rocky Mountain Community Radio.
This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including KSJD.