Kevin Abourezk
ICT
The Native American Rights Fund plans to send election monitors to nine states with significant Native voters ahead of the Tuesday midterm elections, especially Alaska.
“There are any number of steps where voters can encounter obstacles – and thanks to years of underfunded election infrastructure throughout Indian Country, Native voters are forced to confront more barriers than most,” said NARF Senior Staff Attorney Jacqueline De León in a statement.
The other states where NARF is planning to send nearly 300 attorneys, law students and volunteers as part of its Election Protection ’26 effort are Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada, and Montana.
Those volunteers will work to ensure election rules are followed and will document ongoing barriers. They’ll report to NARF attorneys who will provide legal counsel to protect Native voters.
“What we want Native people to remember is this: your vote is incredibly powerful,” De León said. “It can influence everything from Tribal sovereignty to Native economies to having access to clean water. If you are experiencing voting trouble, do not give up. NARF can help you make sure your rights are not compromised.”
Alaska became a focal point for the midterm elections after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a federal suit to block Alaska’s Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s election if she prevails on Tuesday. The DOJ argued that the appearance of a candidate on the ballot who has a similar name to incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, unfairly confuses voters. On Sunday a federal judge dismissed the case.
When he filed the suit, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the Peltola campaign of orchestrating the presence of the other Sullivan on the ballot. “They are trying to take votes away from the incumbent, not by running an election, not by running on issues but by putting up a person with the same name,” he said.
In a statement to ICT on Wednesday, Peltola’s campaign denied any involvement in convincing the other Sullivan to seek the Senate seat.
“Mary got in this race because Alaskans deserve a champion who is fighting to lower their costs and put Alaska first, and no tweet or threat from any DC politician will keep her away from that fight,” the campaign said. “The Alaskans for Mary campaign has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign.”
In Alaska, efforts to siphon votes away from certain candidates by introducing spoiler candidates are seemingly common. This year in the Senate primary, Republican-aligned donors and groups funded a Super PAC called Fair Deal Alaska, which spent nearly $1 million opposing Peltola and funding two candidates who likely drew votes from Peltola, Democrat Carol Hafner and Green Party candidate Richard Grayson, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Fair Deal Alaska received $650,000 from the Republican Senate Leadership Fund, $100,000 from the Last Frontier PAC, which has links to Sen. Sullivan, according to the Anchorage Press.
Meanwhile, Democrat-aligned super PAC Right for Alaska spent $2.35 million to boost fringe Republican and other conservative candidates in order to pull votes from Sen. Sullivan, according to the Anchorage Press.
Voting in Alaska, especially in rural areas and Native villages, is already challenging with some villages only accessible by airplane and uncertain weather conditions.
Michelle Sparck, Qissunamiut Tribe of Chevack and director of Get Out the Native Vote under the First Alaskans Institute, Alaska Federation of Natives, and Cook Inlet Tribal Council, told ICT that one region in Alaska in particular with 107 voting precincts and hundreds of Native villages always faces voting obstacles. Precinct Four extends from the Aleutian Islands up along the coast toward the Bering Sea and includes eight communities in the North Slope.
She said 18 polling sites, all in Native communities, already failed to open for early voting. Those polling sites serve nearly 4,000 Native communities, she said.
“For people in those communities, it’s a very big concern, but … it happens every year,” Sparck said. “It doesn’t happen at that kind of volume, not that we know of.”
She said each year Native votes often don’t get counted because they arrive in the state capital Juneau too late. In Alaska, Native voters account for nearly 25 percent of the electorate.
“It all adds to the sense of voter apathy,” she said. “So we have a lot of people in our community that think their vote doesn’t matter.”
This year, however, voter apathy doesn’t seem to be a problem with a 49 percent increase in turnout for the 175 tribally affiliated precincts in Alaska during the Aug. 18 primary elections as compared to the 2024 primary elections. In addition, three voting regions with high percentages of Native voters saw an increase in turnout of more than 80 percent.
“We’re hoping that this is going to act like a voter tide and that … is going to move toward the midterms,” she said.
To give Native voters more of a chance to vote, the Alaska Federation of Natives hosted an early voting drive during its annual convention held Oct. 22-24 in Anchorage. The event gave Native voters from any district in Alaska a chance to vote early and accounted for nearly 10 percent of all early voting in Alaska, Sparck said.
Native voters who encounter difficulties obtaining or casting a ballot at any point – from now until all votes are counted – should contact NARF at 866-OUR-VOTE or vote@narf.org.
“Our vote is our voice,” De León said. “We must and will ensure every Native vote is counted.”
