NAVAJO NATION – On a brisk Tuesday election morning, thousands in the Navajo Nation lined up at precincts and chapter houses to cast their votes in the general and Navajo Nation elections. As ballots were counted and numbers updated throughout the day, the overall feeling was excitement, but there was still uncertainty among voters as voting came to an end.

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump set up camp outside voting sites and provided donuts, coffee and many campaign flyers to help spread their respective messages.

“It’s a little nerve-racking right now,” said Lucretia Joe, a Democratic Party supporter who had been accommodating voters at the Ganado Chapter House since 6 a.m. “Our coffee is going and going, so far we did about six pots of coffee (as of 12 a.m.).”

Joe was spending her time at voting precincts to assist those in the Navajo Nation who needed help on Election Day. A large portion of the Navajo Nation is in Apache County, which has had complications with voting in the past – and this year was no different.

About 71.8% of Apache County is American Indian/Alaskan Native, making it the largest demographic and a higher proportion than any other county in Arizona. In 2018, the Navajo Nation sued Apache County over inadequate voting services. In the 2020 general election, voters in Apache County saw a higher percentage of rejected provisional ballots due to voting in the wrong precinct, according to votebeat.org.

Late Tuesday, the Navajo Nation asked the Apache County Superior Court to keep polls open late because of delays earlier in the day. Judge Michael Latham ordered polls in Lukachukai, Lupton, Rock Point, Cottonwood, St. Michaels, Wheatfields, Dennehotso, Fort Defiance and Chinle to remain open for two extra hours until 9 p.m.

According to the county’s Board of Supervisors, there were issues early in the day with on-demand ballot printers. By 6 p.m., one polling site was still having difficulties, according to Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.

Ballots submitted after regular voting hours were treated as provisional ballots and sequestered pending verification by poll workers.

There has been a history of voting complications within Indigenous communities in Arizona, and Tuesday morning provided a new set of challenges. Shandiin Herrera and Sadie Red Eagle are both third-year law students at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. As part of the organization Arizona Native Vote, they were outside the Chinle voting precinct helping people with questions regarding the election. In their time assisting people, they encountered many of the voting challenges that still hinder Apache County today.

The issues they said people faced were:

• The Chinle voting precinct opened late, after the slated 6 a.m. opening time.
• Inadequate poll worker training.
• People showing up to the wrong precinct.
• Printers, voting machines, accessible voting devices experiencing shutdowns.
• At 3 p.m., the Chinle voting precinct and others in Apache County ran out of provisional ballots and emergency ballots.

Apache County said in a news release that it identified the printer issue early and worked quickly to resolve the problem. “All polling places have remained open and voting has continued for registered voters who want to cast their ballots in Apache County,” the news release said.

“It’s frustrating,” Herrera said. “We’re like ‘Go get out and vote!’ We have volunteers across the state, but then there’s nothing we can do when the polling places run out of ballots, or they’re not going to offer provisional ballots, or they’re just not following the state law.”

Red Eagle expressed similar frustrations, noting that “Apache County has been sued time and time again for issues like this, not even in this election. This isn’t a new issue for Apache County, and it continues to happen, and they continue to get sued. … So hoping Apache County will get their act together.”

Candace French, an attorney voting in Window Rock, was almost turned away when she tried to make it a point to use her tribal ID as identification, given it is a federally recognized form of identification.

“I told her that it’s the law,” French said. “Another coworker came in behind me, and she said, ‘She’s right. You’re supposed to take her tribal ID.’ And so she ended up taking my tribal ID, and I used it to vote.”

Vanessa Watchman, a voter in Chinle, had to visit two different precincts to get clarification on where she was supposed to vote, adding time to the process. Many more had to wait hours to cast their votes, and some decided to walk away altogether due to the complications.

To mitigate many of the issues with region-based precincts, voting centers are established as one-for-all voting sites. In counties like Maricopa, Yuma and Pima, anyone from anywhere in the county can vote at a voting center. For Apache County, voting centers aren’t available, and people vote based on their assigned region. Herrera advocated for voting centers in Apache County and the Navajo Nation to ease the amount of confusion.

“It’s a huge issue to be precinct-based,” Herrera said, “especially in rural parts of the county, and especially on tribal lands, because as we saw today, there’s just so much confusion. And so people don’t have gas money, they don’t have the time, they have to go back to work. And so if it was in the vote-center system, they could just go to any polling location and cast a standard ballot.”

Some people showed up to the polls with different issues in mind. Cost of living, inflation and federal funding were all issues voters said they cared about.

Zeriyah James, a young Harris voter from Window Rock, said the biggest issue she was voting on was abortion rights. Anthony Calvine Sr., a Trump voter also in Window Rock, voted based on his concerns with border security. Christopher Bahe, a candidate for the St. Michaels Chapter Secretary/Treasurer, expressed how much Harris’ running mate Tim Walz’s commitment to social security meant to him, after similarly losing his father at a young age and having to use Social Security survivor benefits.

“His words resonated with me because I didn’t believe we would have survived,” Bahe said.

Despite different opinions, one thing Navajo Nations voters agreed on was the importance of the Indigenous vote, especially in Arizona.

Jennifer Shirley and Timothy Begay are both running for chapter positions in Sawmill. They shared the same sentiment that the Indigenous vote in Arizona is crucial to winning the state’s electoral votes. As Election Day wrapped up and ballots were counted, many in the Navajo Nation waited patiently, hoping their voices were heard.

“Joe Biden, he ran and the state Arizona became Democratic, became blue … partially because of Native American votes; there was a large turnout with the Navajo and other tribes throughout the state,” Begay said.

Shirley, a Harris voter, has high hopes for the state of Arizona. “I think the state is going to turn blue all the way through, so I believe that,” Shirley said.

Arizona remains a critical state in the tightly contested presidential race and was key in securing Biden’s victory in 2020, when he narrowly won the state over Trump by just over 10,000 votes.