by Roz Brown for Public News Service
Voting disparities have deep roots for people of color and new research showed New Mexico's Native voters are likely to face numerous roadblocks at the November ballot box.
The Native American Rights Fund report used federal data from the past three general elections to show rejected voter registration applications increased by an average of 200% in counties where Native Americans make up at least a quarter of the population.
Allison Neswood, senior staff attorney for the fund, said the report confirmed what Native communities have long known to be true.
"Their registration is getting denied, their ballots (are) getting rejected and all of this really adds up to the systemic disenfranchisement of our people in our own homelands," Neswood asserted.
The report outlined how disruptions at the U.S. Postal Service had a significant effect on Native voters. Even as overall mail-in voting numbers declined between 2020 and 2024, the rejection rate of ballots in areas with larger Native populations increased by 134%. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order calling on the Postal Service to oversee mail-in ballots, a move plaintiffs successfully argued would have severely restricted voting by mail.
The report’s recommendations include expanding automatic and same-day registration to areas with larger Native populations and paying poll workers comparable wages. Neswood argued more investment is needed for voting infrastructure in Indian Country.
"Making sure that our Native communities have polling locations in a reasonable distance from where they live, making sure they have registration opportunities, making sure that they can participate in mail voting," Neswood outlined.
The study focused on counties with high Native populations, including Cibola, McKinley and San Juan counties in New Mexico, along with Apache and Navajo counties in Arizona.
Research by the Brennan Center in 2024 found voters of color are more likely to turn out when they live in jurisdictions where their ethnic group is the majority.