The SAVE America Act would require voters to prove their citizenship in person to register to vote. Supporters like President Donald Trump say it would crack down on illegal voting by undocumented immigrants—something that’s very rare and already against the law.
But tribal leaders say the legislation would create barriers to voting for Indigenous populations. KNAU’s Ryan Heinsius spoke with Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley who’s spearheaded a measure to oppose the legislation.
RYAN HEINSIUS: Tribal leaders have for years resisted further ID requirements for voting. Why would this specific proposal have disproportionate impacts on Navajo citizens and other Indigenous peoples?
CRYSTALYNE CURLEY: The first challenge is documentation. So, birth certificates—our tribal IDs, our CIB, Certificate of Indian Blood—don’t identify birthplace or citizenship. So, a majority of our Navajo people may have one or the other but overall it doesn’t verify the birthplace or citizenship.
A lot of the feedback that I got back today from my elders—many of them are, for example, on fixed income, they only receive like $500 a month. I hear the frustration, like a lot of them are saying that, “Oh, prices are going up on everything, food and gas,” and it’s just an additional barrier that they now have to worry about.
HEINSIUS: This is folks having to drive really long distances multiple times, right?
CURLEY: Just to vote. Say you’re traveling out from Low Mountain, like that’s one of my very rural district. If you’re coming out from Low Mountain, Ariz., you either have to get to Chinle or you have to get to St. Michaels, and that’s about a 100-mile round trip. So first you would register to vote, verify your documents.
If everything goes right, that’s one trip, and then primary Election Day on January 21, you’d make another trip again to do in-person voting, and then again in November. So, three times if you just assume that everything goes as planned.
HEINSIUS: You’ve said the power of the indigenous vote has grown in recent election cycles. Do you see this as an attempt to limit that influence?
CURLEY: Yeah. I think that throughout the decades, if you look at the trends of how much voter turnout that we do have, it’s on the rise for Navajo, and we can see the same with other tribal nations. And if this law gets into place we go two steps back on the additional barriers that we already do have, such as the real ID and then having to prove our citizenship.
And yeah, a lot of people are frustrated, but we want to move forward. We were given the right to vote back in the 1940s.
This is very recent, less than 100 years ago. So now looking at that and embracing it our people should have the right to vote. Having the access to vote, not additional barriers.
HEINSIUS: I’d like to also ask you about President Trump’s recent executive order limiting mail-in voting. How could this affect voters on the Navajo Nation?
CURLEY: The majority of our Navajo voters in Arizona rely on mail-in voting. Earlier we talked about the lack of transportation and then weather plays a role and then also income.
Now, a lot of the times a majority of our voters not knowing what might happen, they rely on mail-in ballots. And you can see that—I think the last statistics that we got was at least over half of our Navajo people do mail-in ballots. So, if it does take into effect, if you’re not recognizing mail-in ballots you are eliminating over 50% of the Navajo people’s voice.
HEINSIUS: Speaker Curley, thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
CURLEY: Yeah. No problem. And, you know, we’re just really hopeful for our congressional leaders to hear us and to support tribes such as the Navajo Nation to oppose the SAVE Act and to work with tribes to expand access to voting, not putting additional barriers.
