New study shows more barriers to voting for Native Americans

In the Navajo Nation in Ganado, Ariz., a local organizer shows a resident where to sign a card pledging to vote in the November presidential election. “There’s something more intensely happening in Native American communities on tribal land,” said Chelsea Jones, a researcher on the study. “There are ideas that are held up as the gold standard about how polling works that don’t work for Indian Country because of where we live, because of how difficult it is to connect to people in our community.” Fryberg, a member of the Tulalip Tribe in Washington State, was one of several Indigenous researchers who denounced a recent Edison Research exit poll in which 65% of Native American voters who participated said they voted for Donald Trump. Fryberg said allowing those surveyed to self-identify as Native Americans, without follow-up questions about tribal membership and specific Indigenous populations, means that data cannot accurately capture voting trends for those communities. Jones said passage of the Native American Voting Rights Act, a bill that has stalled in Congress, would ensure equitable in-person voting options in every precinct on tribal lands.