The power of the Indigenous vote in U.S. elections
Three voting rights activists share their successes in getting out the Indigenous vote
On Nov. 5, 2024, America elected the forty-seventh President of the United States of America.
In the months leading up to the U.S. election, there was a lot of analysis about the Black vote, the Latino vote and a variety of other swing voter groups.
Meanwhile, mainstream media coverage on the Native American vote was limited.
A few days after the election, CBC's Unreserved gathered a panel of voting rights activists to hear their message to voters.
When asked about the election results, Elveda Martinez from the Walker River Paiute Tribe in Nevada said, "personally, I'm pretty upset about it."
She was even more upset that no one from any party came to their reservation.
While Martinez didn't expect the presidential candidates to show up, this is the first time in a presidential election where no one from either party reached out.
"We're on a major highway — to get from Reno to Vegas, they'd have to come through our reservation," she said. "We're right here, but nobody could stop for five or 10 minutes."
The power of the tribal vote
Martinez says the lack of interest from candidates is misplaced. As a voting rights activist for over 30 years, she's seen the Native vote make or break elections.
In some cases, the tribal vote is the swing vote. Like in Nevada, when the late Harry Reid was elected to the Senate in 1988.
Senator Reid beat Republican John Ensign by a few hundred votes, and Martinez asserts that he got at least that many from their community. She used to joke around with him that they put him there.
"He was a tough guy but he did a lot of good for our tribe," said Martinez.
Reid ended up serving as a U.S. Senator from 1987 to 2017. During that time, he led the Senate Democratic Caucus for 12 years.
Martinez has seen stories of the power of the tribal vote in other states too.
Senator Jon Tester was in a close race in Montana's 2018 Senate election.
"He went to sleep and thought he lost," Martinez recounted, adding that the senator had not considered the strength of the rural vote, which is often counted later. "[He] woke up in the morning, and he had won because all of the Native votes came in at night."
She estimates that Nevada has almost 90,000 tribal votes, and she wishes people would realize their strength.
A sleeping giant waiting to be awakened
April Ignacio is a grassroots organizer who works year-round to get out the vote in Arizona. She believes that Arizona's 300,000 eligible voters are like a sleeping giant.
"Every election cycle, we perform less than 10 per cent," she said. "And what we tell our community is, you may have missed the last election, but guess what? You're early for the next one."
Ignacio's the co-founder of Indivisible Tohono, a community based organization that focuses on civic engagement beyond voting.
She says her group builds people power, one vote at a time. To her, meaningful civic engagement includes a wide range of actions — including sitting at home, talking about candidates.
On November 5, Ignacio helped register a 76-year-old U.S. Navy veteran to vote. He participated in Vietnam but had never voted before.
"We were sitting on his couch and he was talking about how these men — these people who are running for these elected offices — are dangerous," Ignacio recalled. "He was talking about how disappointed he was that he wasn't going to be able to vote, because he wanted to vote for abortion access."
He'd talked to his daughters, granddaughters and great granddaughters, and considered his vote an act of love for his community.
"We understand that the power in this country is at the ballot box," said Ignacio. "So if our voters have as much information as they need to feel confident when they're at the ballot box. We will have done our job."
She sees her work as planting seeds to protect communities, public education and workers rights.
Access to voting
Even though this year marks the 100th anniversary of Native Americans being granted the right to vote, it is still not accessible in many parts of the U.S.
While Martinez helped file a lawsuit in 2016 to gain the right to early voting, she still says they have it made because they're able to vote in-person, by mail and online.
In Ignacio's community, there were also two youths in 2022 that had to file a lawsuit to get their right to vote because they didn't have a physical address.
For Michelle Sparck in Alaska, getting out the vote is a little bit more difficult.
"Two-thirds of our state is accessible only by air or barge or boat," said Sparck, who is the Director of Strategic Initiatives for Get out the Native Vote in Alaska.
In the 80s and 90s, she found that voter turnout was anywhere from 60 per cent to 97.5 per cent in Native villages. She was shocked.
"The Native demographic is massive, if we vote," said Sparck. "But we're not voting. We haven't voted at those levels since the early 2000s."
While there are just over 400 precincts in the state, many of their communities are small and don't even get one. This means they don't get a polling place to vote in person.
"We had to scramble and figure out how to meet that full day of voting with an ability to vote at all," she said. Sometimes absentee ballots are sent out pre-emptively to voters, but that wasn't the case this year.
Since a lot of remote communities don't have post offices, they had to get creative and figure out how to fax or scan ballots in, so they could be counted in time.
Action beyond voting
Part of Martinez's work in Nevada is also ensuring that the community is represented — beyond just voting.
"We always tell people, we don't care which way you vote," she said. "After that, we want you to get involved in the state legislative process where we can pass these bills."
Martinez says the Tribal Impact Bills have had a huge impact on policy in Nevada.
In recent years, there have been bills to waive fees associated with post-secondary education for Native American students. Another allowed regalia to be worn at high school and college graduation ceremonies.
There was also a community in Northern Nevada where a siren would go off every evening near an old Indian boarding school.
"That siren told the Indians they had to get back to that school or they had to leave the town and go home — they could not be seen on the streets of that town after six o'clock," she said. "And that siren was still going until the last legislative session."
Young people showed up with signs at the state legislature — ready to share how important the tribal impact bill was to them. People filled the phone queues to testify as well.
With that, the siren was stopped.
"We can fill up a room, no problem," said Martinez with a chuckle. "These kids aren't even at voting age, but they got involved and a bill was passed … To me, that was a big win for Nevada Indian Country."
Martinez said the power of the Indigenous vote is also something that can cross party lines. Nevada has had a Republican governor since January 2023 and he has signed off on every single bill her group has brought to the floor. It just goes to show what happens when people show up and work together.
Increasing voter turnout through youth
Sparck also sees youth involvement as crucial to improving Alaska's voter turnout.
This year, she travelled to 16 schools in remote locations in Alaska to talk to youth about voting, and share these numbers with them.
She believes that even if people feel that the system doesn't represent them, a government is going to be elected anyway, and that they might as well have a say in it.
"I've seen light come into these kids' eyes," she said, after telling them about how Alaska's voter turnout used to be.
She's also seen sign ups for their Youth at the Booth program jump from just two students to 112 who want to get involved at polling stations in future elections.
"We all have a responsibility to community, not just for our households, not just for yourselves — it takes a village to get a representative government."
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