A Native voting ecosystem in Nevada
The Yomba Shoshone Tribe is located in rural Nevada, mostly dirt roads that make it challenging for some citizens to drop off their mail-in ballots. In 2022, the solution was unusual but it worked for the Yomba Shoshone.
“They're not just in the middle of Nevada, but I mean it's complete dirt roads to get there,” said Stacey Montooth, executive director for the Nevada Indian Commission.
Tribal representatives went on horseback to collect completed ballots and drive them an hour to the county seat in Austin, Nevada.
Since 2016, the Native American vote in Nevada has become stronger and stronger. Nonprofit organizations, state and tribal governments have worked together over nearly the last decade to increase the power of the Native vote. The solutions Nevada groups have found to increase civic engagement for rural and urban Native voters is direct engagement, meeting people where they’re at and ultimately, and multiple choices for how to cast a ballot.
There are 20 federally recognized tribal nations that predate the state of Nevada and still live within, what are now, the boundaries of the state. More than 62,000 Native Americans from over 200 different nations live in urban areas.
American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders make up 5.1 percent of the state’s population, according to the U.S. Census. All together the number of Indigenous voters in the state is 158,322.
To put this into context, Nevada’s ninth most populous city, Sparks, has a population of 108,025. The state’s eight most populous area, Paradise, has a population of 191,238. Both are located next to either Las Vegas or Reno.
The journey to increase voter engagement started in 2016 when three Native American veterans and two tribes sued the state of Nevada for violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Some citizens of Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and Walker River Paiute Tribe were forced to drive at most 96 miles round trip to access in-person voter registration and in-person early voting. On election day, Pyramid Lake Paiute citizens had to drive 32 miles round trip according to court documents. All this effort because there were no on-reservation polling locations or in-person voter registration.
“My elderly grandma who lived on the reservation all her life. She was having to drive 90 minutes to vote and as she got older, she had to find someone to help her get to the polling station,” Montooth said.
In comparison, some of the affluent residents of Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada side, could walk to their polling locations. On the east shore of Lake Tahoe, in Glenbrook, Nevada, the median sale price for homes, in 2021, was $2.17 million according to a Reno Gazette Journal article.
The court sided with the plaintiffs and required Washoe County to establish satellite polling locations on Pyramid Lake Paiute and Walker River Paiute lands ahead of the 2016 general election.
Since then, Native leaders and citizens have taken it upon themselves to increase voter engagement in innovative ways.
“The one solution for Indian Country is actually multiple choices because there isn't one size fits all,” Montooth, Walker River Paiute Tribe, told ICT .
There are a number of things the state of Nevada has done to make voting easier, including same-day voter registration, and expanding the use of the Effective Absentee System for Elections, created to make voting easy for Nevada military personnel deployed overseas. Tribal citizens who live on their sovereign lands are now eligible to use this system and vote from the comfort of their homes.
“ You can get people overseas (access) to vote, but we can't get tribal members in the state of Nevada ,” said Tammi Tiger, Nevada Indian Commissioner.
LINK TO SEEDED ARTICLE: https://ictnews.org/news/a-native-voting-ecosystem-in-nevada
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Another victory for Native Vote and the recent court decision in North Dakota stops the states suppression of the Native vote.
there's only one party in america that continuously works towards making it more difficult for americans to vote.
Yup, pretty much.
Some of the young NA people are really stepping up helping to get others registered and out to vote.
That is true and after decades of our vote being supressed, many of the older Natives just gave up and some didn't and now the younger ones are pushing the and entering politics at every level.
That will be the only way they can level the playing field.
Absolutely.