USA Today: Native Americans battle COVID-19 and other voting obstacles as Election Day nears

Patricia Whitefoot lives in the heart of the windswept Yakima Nation in central Washington state. To collect her mail-in voter ballot, the 70-something grandmother recently drove 25 miles each way on pitted roads. But nothing would stop her.

“As the first peoples of this country, we’re inherently invested in taking care of this land,” says Whitefoot, who, when not babysitting her 5-year-old grandson, stays busy dispensing voting information to other Native American voters by phone and computer.

“It’s harder now because of the pandemic,” Whitefoot says. “But we’re helping each other to get the vote out.”

COVID-19 has disproportionately sickened or killed Native Americans across the U.S., creating another Election Day challenge for a poor and geographically isolated population already fighting to overcome steep voting barriers ranging from discriminatory election laws to distant polling stations.

Though this election has seen many Americans turn to voting by mail to avoid COVID-19 exposure, some Indigenous Americans risk having their votes ignored given the limited and inefficient nature of postal service on many rural reservations. Spotty internet access also makes it challenging to access information on how to vote in a pandemic.  …

In some states, the pandemic may already have depressed Native American voter turnout. In New Mexico, home to Navajos as well as members of 19 Pueblo Indian tribes, there was a 1% decline in Native American absentee ballots in this spring’s presidential primary, a recent Common Cause report noted. Overall turnout statewide, however, saw an 8% jump in participation via absentee ballots. …

In New Mexico, Amber Carillo ishelping members of the state’s various tribes get information on the best way to register ahead of the Oct. 31 deadline. A member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe with relatives in the Acoma Pueblo, Carillo is particularly distressed whenever she gets word of another elder who has died from complications of COVID-19.

“These are people that carry our cultural wisdom and language,” says Carillo, a Native American voting rights organizer with the activist group Common Cause New Mexico. “For us, when they die, it’s like the Library of Congress burning down.”