How Election Day played out for tribal voters in Arizona
Wisps of clouds lingered over the AkChin Indian Community at 7 a.m. Tuesday as a slow but steady flow of vehicles pulled in to the tribe’s community service center to vote. The center, in a sleepy community of 770 about 40 miles south of Phoenix, drew Ak-Chin tribal members and community residents of the O’odham tribe.
Samantha Alejandro, who is married to an Ak-Chin tribal member, arrived early to cast her vote. A mother of three, including one child on the autism spectrum, she said she is concerned with how fast the racial climate has changed. The first-time voter said she voted for Biden and Harris.
“I’m for peace,” said Alejandro, “and we need to take steps to get there.”
Jose Batopis III, 28, is also a firsttime voter and used a colorful term to characterize the leadership over the last four years.
“The way the president has handled the pandemic has been a disaster,” said Batopis, who’s enrolled in the YavapaiApache Nation and has Yaqui and O’Odham heritage. He lives in the Ak-Chin Indian Community.
Batopis said he didn’t feel it was necessary to vote in 2016, but this time around, it became necessary after losing an uncle, great-uncle and his grandfather to the coronavirus. He voted the Biden-Harris ticket.
“They will take the country in a better direction,” Batopis said. Another thing that drove Batopis’ decision: “Trump never answers a question. He just lies.”
He said he hadn’t experienced any barriers to voting, but said that if he had, “they wouldn’t stop me.”
The scene was repeated in tribal communities across central Arizona, as Native voters who hadn’t cast ballots early showed up on Election Day. Voting locations were more subdued than usual because of the coronavirus pandemic, but leaders and advocates worked to ensure a smooth experience.
Over the past year, Native Vote, a nonpartisan initiative that encourages Native people to vote in national, state and local elections, has been holding voter education classes and registration and get-out-the-vote drives, partnering with National Congress of American Indian attorneys and other entities in election protection and data collection.
One of those partners, the Indian Legal Clinic at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, provided assistance to voters who experienced issues casting their vote.
Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, the clinic’s director and a member of the Pointe-auChien Indian Tribe, said about 100 volunteers fanned out throughout Arizona to provide help on a range of questions ranging from voter registration to early balloting and provisional balloting on Election Day.
“We received a lot of calls about provisional ballots,” she said.
Ferguson-Bohnee lives in Gila River Indian Community’s District 4, where she went to cast her own vote. One concern she said she encountered from voters in tribal communities is nontraditional addresses. That results from post office boxes differing from physical addresses in communities where home mail delivery isn’t an option.
“We see that a lot in Navajo, Gila River, San Carlos and other places,” she said. Also, she said county lines can cross reservation precinct lines, adding to the confusion.
One mother and her grown child were told to go to different polling places even though they live in the same home. “They should have gotten a provisional ballot,” said Ferguson-Bohnee. “But we called Pinal County and it was resolved later in the day.”
Ferguson-Bohnee also said the hotline rang with reports of voter intimidation over the weekend.
“In Guadalupe, people walked past the 75-foot zone and were taking pictures of voters,” she said. That’s a violation of voting regulations. And, she said police were pulling people over next to the Mercado where the polling place was set up. In the Gu Achi District in the Tohono O’odham Nation, some partisan poll watchers were observed trying to tell the poll workers how to run the election.
She alleged that one poll worker harassed an elder who had come to vote.
“The elder was made to pull down his mask to verify his ID,” said FergusonBohnee. “Then the poll worker said, ‘I’m going to call you and see if you voted the right way.’ ”
Over the weekend in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Fer
guson-Bohnee and chief poll watcher, Salt River Council Member Diane Enos, both reported that several voters were told to pull their masks down to verify ID and some expressed doubt that the picture matched the face.
Ferguson-Bohnee said some of the incidents show that poll workers need more training, since the counties are aware of these and other issues in Indian Country. She credits the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona with setting up a series of meetings with county recorders to discuss how best to support tribal voters.
She also praised the volunteers, some of whom had to get tested for COVID-19 and carry special travel papers to tribal lands like Hopi and Navajo, which are barring visitors and instituting curfews.
All in all, though, Ferguson-Bohnee said she found people felt good about voting. “I think there was a balance to stay safe and keep the polling open,” she said.
In Bapchule, a community in the Gila River Indian Community, three members of the Arizona State University’s Indigenous pageant royalty supported the Native Vote initiative on Tuesday.
Miss Indigenous ASU Lourdes Pereira is a member of the Hia-Ced O’odham, Arizona’s only tribe that’s not federally recognized, and is enrolled at the Tohono O’odham Nation. Pereira, a double major in American Indian and justice studies, said one issue important to her is ensuring Native people can access ballots and return them from remote tribal communities while avoiding being infected with COVID-19.
First Attendant Jolene Fernandez, Navajo and Pomo, who is studying mathematics with a minor in American Indian studies, and Mr. Indigenous ASU First Attendant Randy Long, a Navajo citizen majoring in biology, pharmacology and toxicology, echoed her thoughts. Two out of the three said they voted for Joe Biden.
The tribe instituted drive-thru voting, which Fernandez said was a boon for elders, because it kept them from close contact with poll workers.
Gila River community member Bonnie Lyons said she’s volunteered with Native Vote the past two or three elections. She was concerned that the pandemic kept people from learning about the issues, since town halls and other events were held virtually instead of in person.
“Many elders don’t have smartphones,” Lyons said. The local tribal telecommunications company was barred from entering homes to install internet or enhanced service during the pandemic. “But the executive office fixed that so they could get installs done out there.”
Lyons said she felt Biden would be friendlier to Native Americans and that Trump was not talking to tribes.
About 22 miles north of Bapchule in Guadalupe, local shopping spot El Tienges Mercado de Guadalupe resembled a street party. A large Biden contingent held court in the front parking lot, waving banners and handing out free tacos to voters.
It was a bit quieter inside the Mercado’s plaza, where pop-up tents sheltered Native Vote, tribal vote organizers and Republican Party volunteers.
Guadalupe Vice-Mayor Ricardo Vital, a member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and newly-elected Yaqui Council Member Angelina Matus handed out Tshirts, candy and other items to tribal members who came out to vote.
By noon, Vital said about 65 tribal members had stopped by but noted that many Yaquis had voted early.
Vital said that the goal was to encourage tribal members to come out and vote, and to resolve any barriers to casting a vote.
“If a tribal member needs an ID, the Guadalupe tribal office is open and will issue that person an ID today,” he said.
About 3,000 of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe’s 15,000 citizens reside in Guadalupe, a small town of about 7,600 tucked between Phoenix and Tempe that’s one of the tribe’s acknowledged historic communities.
Another first-time voter at the Mercado wasn’t Yaqui but lives nearby. TJ Pattea, 32, a member of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, cast his first vote for the Biden-Harris ticket.
“It feels good to vote for the first time,” Pattea said. “I’ve got a lot of mixed emotions.” His wife, Alexandra WatsonPattea, a nurse, also voted for Biden even though she has doubts about his cognitive health.
“I don’t agree with Trump’s health care programs,” she said.
Watson-Pattea said she doesn’t believe Trump had COVID-19. “He doesn’t realize how bad COVID really is.”
The mood at the Salt River Community’s polling place was upbeat as voters stopped by the tribe’s tent, even as the temperature topped 90 degrees.
Angela Willeford, who’s a tribal member as well as the intergovernmental program manager for the 9,300member tribe just east of Scottsdale, said the staff had put together an action to spur voting, only to encounter COVID-19.
“We have a great relationship with the county,” Willeford said. “We have two drop boxes, here and at Salt River Fields.”
She said there had been a couple of “hiccups,” ranging from missed deadlines to some voters needing two IDs. “Diane Enos is helping since she’s an attorney,” Willeford said. “But I think we had a good turnout.”
The Salt River tribe had run out of Tshirts commemorating the vote, but did have plenty of stickers and other swag on hand just as other tribal communities did.
Enos, a tribal council member, said she was able to help a first-time voter through the process. And, she said, “We have both Republican and Democratic monitors inside, and they’re very respectful in there.”
One thing that was missing from all the tribal polling places due to the pandemic: food, which normally is a big part of any Native event. Many tribal members regard election day as a social event, and at least one tribe hands out steak dinners to voters. Salt River provided packaged snacks and water.
Voting was also underway in a Native community northeast of Phoenix that had the biggest influence on Native Americans’ right to vote.
Two Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation members, World War II veteran Frank Harrison and Fort McDowell Chairman Harry Austin, sued Maricopa County Recorder Roger G. Laveen in 1948 for denying them their right to register to vote, even though Native Americans had been made U.S. citizens in 1924. (A development partially due to another Fort McDowell Yavapai member, Carlos Montezuma, also known as Wassaja.)
The case ended up in the Arizona Supreme Court, where Justice Levi Udall wrote, “In a democracy suffrage is the most basic civil right, since its exercise is the chief means whereby other rights may be safeguarded. To deny the right to vote, where one is legally entitled to do so, is to do violence to the principles of freedom and equality.”
The Yavapais won.
At the tribe’s recreation center, the 900-member tribe arrived in ones and two to vote. Fort McDowell tribal member Jarvis Bear emerged with an “I Voted Today” sticker and some pointed words.
“There needs to be a change in the United States,” Bear said. “Trump is not doing anything, he’s just playing golf and signing papers.”
Martha McSally, who lost to retired astronaut Mark Kelly to keep her Senate seat, also rated the sharp end of Bear’s tongue. “She doesn’t belong in the Senate, she was only appointed,” he said.
Bear also talked about Trump’s assertion that Biden would raise taxes if elected.
“The wealthy people are crying, but Trump hasn’t paid taxes in 18 years.” And, Bear said, Trump doesn’t like tribal sovereignty, another factor in his vote for Joe Biden.
But Bear also had a complaint: He said he was told during his lunch break when he went the first time that he would have to wait 30 minutes. “So I came back!”
In the week before Election Day, Native communities put on events to encourage people to vote.
Native artists Bunky Echo-Hawk and Votan Henriquez created a mural celebrating the O’odham, the Indigenous people of the Valley of the Sun on the back wall of the Fry Bread House, an Indigenous owned-and-operated restaurant in central Phoenix.
Passers-by were directed to the front of the eatery, where staff from the Phoenix Indian Center passed out voter kits: a T-shirt celebrating the Indigenous vote, a safety kit including a mask, gloves and antiseptic wipes and Indian Center brochures.
The event was sponsored by the Phoenix Indian Center, Illuminative, a new initiative that seeks to change the negative narratives that surround Native peoples and the National Congress of American Indians, known as NCAI, a nationwide Indian rights advocate organization.
Echo-Hawk, an enrolled citizen of the Yakima Nation and a member of the Nation of Oklahoma, is an internationally-acclaimed artist best known for his activist works. Los Angeles-based Henriquez, who has Mayan and Nahua heritage, also engages in art meant to support Native rights and issues.
Kids and families also got into the “get out the vote” fun Oct. 28 during a COVID-19-safe drive-through Halloween trick-or-treat held at the Native American Community Service Center, home to the Phoenix Indian Center and other urban Indian organizations.
One Arizona, a left-leaning Hispanic and Indigenous rights group, also supported the creation of several murals across the state to stimulate interest in voting.
The latest mural, based on the O’odham creation story, was unveiled in south Phoenix on Oct. 30 by its creator, Tohono O’odham street muralist Thomas “Breeze” Marcus.
Other artists were on hand to discuss their works, collectively called “Arizona Reimagined Through an Indigenous Lens.” Other artists in the project include Randy and Alyssa Barton, a Diné father and daughter team; San Carlos Apache artist Douglas Miles; LivA’ndrea Knoki of the Navajo Nation; and JJ Lopez of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.
Native Health, a health center serving the urban Indian community and other communities in the Phoenix area, also supported the get out the Native vote effort. The clinic obtained a grant to produce and hand out voter kits, which in addition to the t-shirt and two voter protection kits also contains a bright yellow fanny pack with “Native Vote” emblazoned on the front.
The Gila River Indian Community held a tribal election Tuesday in addition to the general election.
On the ballot: who would lead the 11,200-member tribe just south of Phoenix for another three-year term.
Unofficial results published on the tribe’s Facebook page Wednesday said the incumbent, Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis, won another term as governor. Voters also retained three judges.
The tribe also approved three constitutional amendments.
One will change a law that left tribal members who lived off tribal lands for 20 consecutive years at risk of being disenrolled. The second will move the community of Coop in the western part of the tribal land to a new district and the third will allow the tribe to approve ordinances and resolution without the permission of the Secretary of Interior.
Debra Krol covers issues related to Indigenous communities in Arizona and the intermountain West. Reach the reporter at debra.krol@AZCentral.com or at 602-444-8490. Follow her on Twitter at @debkrol.
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