The Navajo Nation’s second lawsuit seeking to give voters more time to address questionable ballot signatures has been dismissed.
An Apache County Superior Court judge has ruled against a lawsuit filed after about 175 Navajo voters were given 24 hours to correct inconsistent signatures on their early ballots. . The lawsuit asked for Navajo voters to be given additional time to resolve these issues.
Based on testimony provided by Apache County at a Nov. 19 hearing, the judge ruled that the county made reasonable and meaningful attempts to contact voters who needed to correct or correct mismatched signatures on early ballots. It was decided that he did. Based on this finding, the judge dismissed the Navajo Nation’s lawsuit.
Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch said tribal leaders still believe Apache County “disenfranchised Navajo voters in the 2024 general election.”
“Despite this ruling, we will not stop holding Apache County accountable to honoring every Navajo vote in future elections,” she said.
On Election Day, voters across Apache County faced significant hardship as voting machines malfunctioned and provisional ballots quickly ran out. As a result, people waiting in line often endured delays of up to three hours. Some voters ultimately left without voting, and Navajo leaders asked people not to leave before voting.
The Navajo Nation filed its first lawsuit late on Election Day asking counties to extend voting hours by two hours. Extensions were partially granted: Not all of the Navajo Nations in the affected counties were granted extensions, and only nine of the Navajo Nations listed in the complaint filed by the Navajo Nation with the county were granted extensions. Applicable to only one branch.
Navajo leaders suggested the problem may have been caused by an update to the poll rolls the day before.
“I’ve been working on state and federal elections for eight years…This is probably one of the worst election cycles I’ve ever seen,” said Katherine Berzowski, assistant attorney general for the Navajo Nation’s Department of Justice. ” he said. “This is a failure of democracy in Apache County, and we still don’t know why. Apache County voters have a right to know that their votes will be counted.”
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Voters had until 5 p.m. on Nov. 10 to resolve any signature issues on their ballots. The Navajo Nation Department of Justice discovered on Nov. 9 that Apache County had suspended the processing of early votes from Nov. 6 to Nov. 8. Of the affected ballots, 143 Navajo voters required signature corrections.
As of 5:20 p.m. Nov. 9, Apache County still had 900 early ballots to process. With just 48 hours to notify voters and address the issue, many residents are struggling with poor cell phone service, limited internet access, and long trips to the Apache County Recorder’s Office in St. John’s. We were facing significant challenges, including the need for. These barriers and tight deadlines have left voters with little time to take necessary action, according to the Navajo Nation Department of Justice.
“I got a call from the attorney general (Ethel branch) saying, ‘We need help. We have a list, we’ve got a list of people,'” said Janie Parrish, executive director of the nonpartisan Arizona Native Vote. That was the case,” he said. “And we went to work. We did our best and worked with other organizers to split the list and, if there were any phone numbers we had, we started with those first.”
Parrish, a Navajo County voter, joined other volunteers in actively searching for people in Apache, Navajo and Coconino counties who needed their ballots repaired. She initially thought the list of affected voters was manageable, but over time that list grew significantly, with Apache County needing the most help. This list included only ballots with mismatched signatures. Ballots that are not signed at all require a completely different process.
“If they don’t sign, there’s a completely different process and protocol,” Parrish said. “We thought, ‘Can we catch the people who didn’t sign their ballots?'” And then we were told the deadline was over. This is not something everyday voters know. These are changes made by law and policy at the state and county level to make it harder for people to vote. ”
She emphasized that it would be difficult to reach everyone on the list because many Navajo people live in remote and hard-to-reach areas.
“As organizers, we are aware that the information available in our database may not be accurate, and we are aware that physical addresses may not be available,” Parrish said. “So we just come up with a name in a random community and have to go look for that person, hoping that someone knows someone who knows this person. Maybe we’ll be lucky. If so, we might be able to get a detailed description or GIS code of where their home is, but the information we received did not include that information.”
She said time was of the essence because she was notified late Friday night or early Saturday to help find voters. Parrish said they are not allowed to share information online, so in-person assistance is the only option. The only public action they could take was to use radio as a public service announcement urging people to check their ballots online.
There are challenges in finding voters.
Parrish said she tried to find four voters in the Kayenta area, but only managed to contact one. Ballots had only 24 hours to cure over the weekend, and time constraints made it difficult to find multiple ballots.
“You have to find the needle in the haystack,” Parrish said. “I found one voter, but he lived quite far away. He didn’t have a phone number or a description of his house. I drove around and asked people on the street if they knew this person. I had to start. It was the only way to find voters.” It took an hour on a dirt road to get from the Kayenta branch house to his house. ”
When Parrish found the voters, he discovered they only spoke Navajo. Unable to speak Navajo fluently, she sought help from the Navajo County Elections Office. Fortunately, someone was able to answer her phone and provide translation support, even though it was 4pm on a Sunday.
Volunteer efforts on Nov. 10 enabled 21 voters to correct their ballots, but approximately 40 voters reported not being notified of signature issues.
In addition to delays, many Navajo voters faced difficulty getting to the recorder’s office during the election. By mid-afternoon on Nov. 9, the Arizona Secretary of State’s website still indicated that no ballots had been received by Apache County. The Navajo Nation Chairman’s Office said this caused widespread concern and resulted in numerous calls from voters asking to confirm whether their votes were counted.
To give Navajo voters time to correct the inconsistent signatures, the Navajo Nation filed a court brief on Nov. 10 in support of the lawsuit brought by the ACLU and United Latin American Citizens League. The lawsuit, filed in the Arizona Supreme Court, seeks to extend the early voting deadline beyond Nov. 10 because more than 250,000 ballots statewide had not been processed by Nov. 8. However, the Arizona Supreme Court refused to extend the deadline.
In response to the ruling, the Navajo Nation filed its own lawsuit on Nov. 12, demanding that Apache County remain in court until Navajo voters are given sufficient time and notice to correct the signature issue on their ballots. They asked the court to block certification of the election results.
“We want Apache County to take responsibility for the many failures of the 2024 general election and work with the Navajo Nation to protect the rights of Navajo voters in Apache County,” said Chair Crystalyn Curley. said.
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“They want us to be disillusioned.”
During a hearing on the Election Day issue, Branch said that while he served as Navajo Nation Attorney General under former President Russell Begay, the Navajo Nation was not just in Apache County, but in all of Arizona, where the Navajo Nation is located. said they were facing challenges across the county.
In 2018, the Navajo Nation briefly approached the Arizona Secretary of State and Apache, Coconino, and Navajo county officials to protect Navajo voting rights in this election and address future voter inequality. He filed a motion for a restraining order.
The motion called for a short delay in certifying the election results to allow Navajo Nation members time to correct early votes that were rejected due to missing or inconsistent signatures.
“It’s unfortunate to be here today for this purpose and to see what happened on Election Day,” Branch said. “We had high expectations for all three counties that this country is located in. We were going to have open precinct voting, which would basically give voters more access to the ballot, and we were going to have a plan. You’re going to see naivety, lax enforcement, and of course a complete fiasco.” That’s what happened on Election Day, and it’s very alarming. ”
Branch said Coconino and Navajo counties have been able to improve the way they conduct elections each year, so he expects Apache County to do the same.
“The trend we’ve seen so far is that Navajo turnout is gradually increasing,” Branch said. “For some of our employees, there are significant barriers to accessing the polls, and we believe that if they make the effort to go to the polls on Election Day, they will be able to vote. I want to be able to do it and be confident that my vote counts.”
Mr. Parrish expressed that there was no doubt in his mind that this entire situation amounted to voter suppression. She compared the counties and questioned why Apache County couldn’t follow Navajo County’s example of allowing voters to vote at specific vote centers, something Apache County doesn’t allow. Voters in Coconino County can vote at any polling place in the county.
“But for some reason, Apache County is unable to undertake such an effort,” Parrish said. “There are questions about that structure: Why wasn’t the vote planned in advance?” There are a lot of voters out there. What happened to machine testing? Where are the shortfalls? People want to know. ”
Torey Dolan, who was manning the hotline on Election Day, said on the podcast “Diné Situation” that the situation in Apache County has become so dire that the county is responding to Tuba City and Utah. He said he had to call in volunteers. It’s so bad.
“It was tough,” said Dolan, who is also a lawyer. “It was really bad.”
She said she continues to receive calls asking if Apache County received early ballots. Dolan recalled getting a call from her family saying they had come to St. Michael’s to drop off their ballots on Halloween. Ballots are supposed to be received daily, so she checked the Arizona Secretary of State’s vote tracking device and found that her ballot had not been received.
Dolan said by 8 a.m., the way things had unfolded, she knew the next step would be a lawsuit, which wasn’t surprising considering it was Apache County.
“Yes, it’s racism. Yes, it’s discrimination,” Parrish said. “Yes, we are dealing with a system that was not built for us, but this is why we need to be involved. This is why we must vote. Vote for us. People who don’t want us to do that are voting in this way. They want us to be frustrated. They want us to be disillusioned.”
Apache County officials did not respond to The Republic’s request for comment.
The Navajo Nation Department of Justice will hold a second public hearing on Dec. 2 from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Fort Defiance Branch House. This hearing will be an opportunity for Navajo Apache County voters to share their experiences voting in the 2024 general election. Those who are unable to attend the hearing may email their experiences to: general@nndoj.org.
Arlyssa D. Becenti covers Native American issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Submit your ideas and tips arlyssa.becenti@arizonarepublic.com.
