Kadin Mills
ICT

WASHINGTON — Native Health (Central) in Phoenix is now a designated voter registration site and it has partnered with the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona and the Arizona Secretary of State to host “Frybread for the Future Fest” on Tuesday, Sept. 17 in honor of National Voter Registration Day.

Arizona is a key battleground state in the ongoing race for the White House and Congress, and winning over Native Americans in the state could be one path to victory for the presidential hopefuls.

Organizers in Phoenix hope the crispy combination of fresh frybread and ice cream will once again lure Native residents in the city to register to vote.

“Personally, I feel like it really does build that sense of community,” said Alexander Castillo-Nuñez, Quisqueya Taino. He is the civic engagement coordinator for the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona.

Tuesday’s event, located at the Phoenix Indian School Visitor Center and Memorial Hall, is the third in a series of “Frybread for the Future” events that encourage Native Americans in the Phoenix area to become civically engaged.

The first was held on a sunny Saturday in June — aunties dipped large disks of dough into bubbling oil, letting off the savory aroma of deep-fried goodness. A DJ spun beats while those in attendance beaded bracelets, ate Indian tacos, and filled in a poster of “reasons why I vote.” Artists also gave out posters and t-shirts, while tribal royalty came to talk about the importance of voting for Native peoples.

Castillo-Nuñez says these events are also great opportunities to remind people, “in Arizona there were tribal members from Fort McDonald, Yavapai Nation and the Gila River Indian Community who fought to be able to achieve the right to vote.”

So in July, residents celebrated 76 years of the right to vote for Native Americans in Arizona, as well as the 100th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act with, you guessed it, more frybread. The goal is simple: Get Indigenous people engaged civically — encourage them to register to vote and then go to the polls.

“In Arizona, there’s a lot of things that are on the ballot that make a difference every day in people’s lives,” said Walter Murillo, Choctaw, CEO of Native Health and president of the National Council of Urban Indian Health. “So it’s important for anybody to be aware of what’s on the ballot and then have access to the voting booth to voice or express their opinion about that public policy,” he said.

Native Health (Central) was the first Indian health system to be designated a voter registration site in October 2023 under the National Voter Registration Act.

“Being the first NVRA site in the state is really important,” said Murillo. “Working with (Arizona) Secretary of State (Adrian) Fontes and his office was just an amazing experience in that they listened to all the considerations that we have as Native people to register to vote, and that got baked into the process.”

Also known as the “Motor Voter Act,” the National Voter Registration Act was passed in 1993 and established State motor vehicle agencies must provide voter registration. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order encouraging other federal agencies, like the USDA or IHS, to provide increased access to voting information or even registration.

Since then, two more IHS facilities in New Mexico, the Santa Fe Indian Health Center and the Crownpoint Health Care Facility, have also been designated voter registration sites, expanding access to voting for Natives in the Southwest.

Only about 66 percent of eligible Native Americans are registered to vote, according to a Native American Rights Fund report, a Native American run nonprofit providing legal services in matters of Indian law. It estimates there are 1 million unregistered Native voters in the U.S.

Native Americans living in Arizona have the potential to decide the 2024 presidential election. Between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, voter turnout in precincts located in the Navajo and Hopi Nations increased by just over 41 percent, or about 17,500 votes, according to data analysis by the Associated Press. Biden won Arizona’s 11 electoral votes by just over 10,000 popular votes.

The report by the Native American Rights Fund also notes, “Michigan had one of the closest margins in the 2016 Presidential Election. … The Native people eligible to vote was 4x more than the margin of victory in that state.”

According to Jacqueline De León, “there are too many social barriers that make it difficult for Native Americans to vote.” De León, Isleta Pueblo, is a senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund.

These barriers include poor access to voter registration and ballot locations, discrimination by poll workers, as well as discrepancies in housing requirements and non-standard street addressing. Some voters are also turned away for using tribally issued IDs, despite being a valid form of identification. Others are in need of language assistance.

She says despite these hurdles, it’s imperative Native people are heard in the democratic process. A rise in what the Native American Rights fund calls “anti-democratic movements,” however, is working against that goal.

“When Native Americans flex their political power,” De León said, “we really see state legislatures cracking down” on voting access. Following the 2020 election, a wave of state legislatures passed restrictive laws in response to allegations of voter fraud. But De León said, oftentimes, “the fraud they are claiming is taking place doesn’t match up with the laws they are passing.”

States such as Arizona, Nevada, Montana, and Utah have attempted to eliminate ballot collection services citing concerns of fraud. This has disproportionately impacted Native peoples, according to a 2024 report by the University of Utah’s College of Social & Behavioral Science. The report also found, using data from the Heritage Foundation, there was no credible evidence of widespread fraud due to the practice of ballot collection.

Despite the push to restrict voting access across the country, De León said “IHS is ideally situated” to provide Native peoples with increased access to voter registration, an initiative the Native American Rights Fund has continued to advocate for.

For any questions regarding polling locations, voter registration, or election protection in Arizona, call the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona’s election hotline at (888-777-3831).

You can also visit the Native American Rights Fund online at vote.narf.org or call the election protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683), and a volunteer will assist you. Be sure to tell the operator that you are calling about a Native voting issue.

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