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Native Americans are an increasingly important voting demographic — a trend that could be a deciding factor in the 2024 elections.
With a population of about 6.5 million according to the 2020 census, Native American, or Indigenous American, people are coming up on their 100-year citizenship anniversary. Despite this milestone, they still face a myriad of obstacles when it comes to voting.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a host of voter suppression efforts disproportionately affect people of color, especially Indigenous people. Key among these challenges are polling places not taking tribal IDs, reservations not having traditional street addresses for mail-in ballots, and long travel times to polling centers.
Saundra Mitrovich, a citizen of the Tyme Maidu and Yahmonee Maidu Tribes of California and the Civic Engagement Leader at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), spoke to some of these issues in a recent interview.
“On average, most of our Native population has had to travel, depending on where they are, over an hour to two hours to a ballot box just to cast a ballot,” she said.
However, the disenfranchisement doesn’t just impact voting, but rather the entire electoral process. According to a Brookings survey from 2022, “Native Americans were less likely to be contacted by a candidate, party, or civic organization than other communities of color.” Only 42% of Native American voters reported contact during the 2022 campaign, compared to 51% of Latino voters and 56% of African American voters. Efforts are underway to increase Native American engagement.
The Native American Voting Rights Act was introduced to Congress in 2021, and Mitrovich believes it to be the best broadband fix for Native voting disenfranchisement.
“[The act] reduces everything, removing those barriers of IDs, transportation, ballot box location, those types of things. Removing some of those challenges that Native people often have faced, trying to just cast a ballot or participate.”
The Native American Voting Rights Act has not yet been voted into law, while the challenges it addresses resonate with many Indigenous voters.
Hope Orange, a Southern Cheyenne from the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribe, confirms that Native issues are not being addressed at the ballot box.
“The political issues that Natives need to fight for, like water rights and land rights, like better access to health care issues, are detrimental to communities,” she said. “There’s a very big amount of young Native voters and voices, and that’s exactly what should be on the ballot and what should be put into the world.”
The specific issues aside, getting Indigenous Americans to the polls is the main concern for many organizations focused on Indigenous American rights.
Janeen Comenote, a member of the Quinault, Oglala, Hesquiaht and Kwakiutl Nations and the founding Executive Director of the National Urban Indian Family Coalition (NUIFC), spoke in an interview about the goal of getting Native people to vote.
“Native communities broadly are often invisibilized within the body politic in the United States, urban Native communities even more so. This invisibility is pervasive and contributes to poor socio-economic outcomes for our communities,” she said. “We know that resources follow policy and policy follows elections, and when local elections are often won with a few thousand or even a few hundred votes, the work of ensuring that Native communities are actively engaged not just voting, but also participating in civic society is critically important.”
And there’s evidence to suggest that Native Americans could be a crucial voting bloc. When Native people show up for elections, they make waves. According to a Brookings 2022 Midterm Voter Election poll, Native Americans supported Democrats over Republicans across the House and Senate races, which seemingly helped an expected Republican landslide lose steam. Fifty-six percent of Native Voters reported supporting Democratic candidates in the midterm elections.
Rio Fernandes, a member of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in Seattle, Washington, and the Director of Civic Engagement at NUIFC, spoke in an interview about how Native voters’ electoral strength was evident in recent elections, especially swing elections.
“Take Arizona, take Nevada, for example, at statewide level. Those are elections that were decided by less than 10,000 votes. And that’s the sort of thing that if you are able to effectively turn out the urban Native vote, that is something that swings an election in one direction or the other.”
Fernandes and the NUIFC believe this mobilization of Indigenous people in swing states could impact the 2024 election.
“We expect there to be a large turnout of Native voters, of urban Native voters in particular,” Fernandes said. “And then that will, in turn, sort of have a large influence on the election itself.”
Likewise, The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is looking forward to seeing how the 2024 elections will pan out as the Native community prepares to celebrate 100 years of American citizenship.
“How far have we come with voting rights?” Saundra Mitrovich asked. “Our hope out of this next election is that we will see that growth,” she continued. “We will see more people participating and feeling that they have a voice in electing their next leadership and knowing and understanding how what they choose to vote on will affect them.”
About 1.2 million eligible Native American voters are not registered to vote.