Understanding the Voting Challenges Facing Native Americans

Voting is fundamental to our democracy. But, it took decades for most current day citizens to win the right to vote, including Native Americans. Today, they make up 6% of Arizona’s eligible voters and could be a powerful voting bloc. But that’s only if they can get to the polls. With the help of “Indian Country Today,” Matter of Fact visited the Hopi Reservation to understand the voting challenges Native Americans face.

[@allisonshaw9341]

Government policy prevented reservations from having street addresses. To get mail, Natives had to go to the post office, which allowed the Indian agents (white officials in charge of the reservations up until about 1960) to monitor the tribal members. Also, land allotments prevented individuals from having street addresses. The whole intent was to prevent Natives from establishing true residence and thus true citizenship even after it was granted in 1924.

[@EnTitledTown]

Absolutely go vote! It’s your right. Just don’t choose to live way out in the middle of nowhere and then complain that you can’t get to a proper voting site.

[@JDoe-gf5oz]

10 comments, only 4 visible. That wrongthink detector is coming along nicely, I see.

[@nobodyanon7893]

🇵🇹❤️🇵🇹Let us correct the wrong❣️

[@lisas8080]

This needs to be more widely viewed and disseminated. I was gobsmacked by the fact that we just celebrated 100 years of women's suffrage and yet Native Americans still didn't have the right to vote until the 1940s. And then the polling site is 70 miles away! This is egregious.