"TRISTAN AHTONE, National Minority Consortia: It's a grey, wet day on the Tulalip reservation, just 30 minutes north of Seattle. The infamous weather has left fog stuck in pine boughs and the streets wet with rain. Despite the weather, Theresa Sheldon is going door to door registering Native American voters.

THERESA SHELDON, Native Vote Washington: Hello, how are you doing?

RESERVATION RESIDENT: Okay.

THERESA SHELDON: My name's Theresa, we're just going around, we're with Native Vote working Tulalip Tribes on registering people to vote.

RESERVATION RESIDENT: Oh.

THERESA SHELDON: And so we were just coming to see if you need to get registered or if anyone here needs to get registered to vote?

TRISTAN AHTONE: Sheldon is the co-chair of Native Vote Washington, a non-partisan voter advocacy group based on the Tulalip reservation. She carries voter registration forms, flyers, a clipboard and a pen.

Today, Sheldon is joined by five other volunteers. They've been registering voters all year long at community events, powwows, festivals and other gatherings, but today is the first time they've gone door to door.

THERESA SHELDON: A lot of times when you do powwows or do certain places it's the same people who go to the powwows so you're sort of hitting the same group of individuals over and over again, and so to really connect to everyone you have to change up the different events you go to."

Get the Story:
Advocates Push for Washington Native Voter Data, Participation (PBS Newshour 10/8)