[Lwvcnmtopics] League of Women Voters of Central New Mexico Updates - voting in tribal communities

Thu Jun 25 13:39:09 MDT 2020

One idea about voting in tribal communities….

I’m working on a pilot project to provide hand washing stations and water purification systems in the Wester Navajo region.  In those very rural areas volunteers are delivering water, food, ppe, etc.  Perhaps there is a way to coordinate with those folks to distribute applications for absentee ballots.  The application is short… if it’s legal, perhaps the person distributing could pick it up as well. 

I don’t know all of the legalities around this idea (including the lack of addresses), but I think this idea may be worth exploring.

Leora

From: Lwvcnmtopics <lwvcnmtopics-bounces at mailman.swcp.com> On Behalf Of George Richmond
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2020 1:31 PM
To: Linda Adcox-Kimmel <kimmel.linda9 at gmail.com>; kwentworth17 at comcast.net
Cc: lwvcnmtopics at mailman.swcp.com
Subject: Re: [Lwvcnmtopics] League of Women Voters of Central New Mexico Updates

Perhaps the various Indian nations/tribes/pueblos could share with the NM SOS as to what is needed to increase voter turnout at elections

Voting at a Pueblo is not that complex as the people all live relatively close by, but for the Navajo, who are spread out very widely, getting to the voting center is not as easy.

As it is, the number of voting centers in NM for the November election has been cut back...and as the attachment from Karen shows, some of the NM counties have only ONE voting center.

Thus in those counties, voting by mail is an important option.  

George

On 6/25/2020 1:17 PM, Linda Adcox-Kimmel wrote:

Might it be beneficial to have Dine and Puebloan interpreters or translators available at voting centers, telephonically if not in person, for those voters?

Thanks,

Linda Adcox-Kimmel

On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 12:25 PM <kwentworth17 at comcast.net> wrote:

George-

This is an issue that has been debated in the NM legislature for decades. When it is discussed, the traditional arguments are that Navajo has been primarily a spoken rather than written language, and that native speakers have not read or written in the language, so the value on a ballot would be dubious. There have been similar arguments for the pueblo languages and the Apache languages. The NM SOS has tried to deal with this by publishing some materials about voting in a various languages.

The state has never been able to satisfactorily resolve the problem.

Karen

From: Lwvcnmtopics <lwvcnmtopics-bounces at mailman.swcp.com <mailto:lwvcnmtopics-bounces at mailman.swcp.com> > On Behalf Of George Richmond
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2020 11:23 AM
To: lwvcnmtopics at mailman.swcp.com <mailto:lwvcnmtopics at mailman.swcp.com> 
Subject: Re: [Lwvcnmtopics] League of Women Voters of Central New Mexico Updates

I read the attachment to Karen's letter which deals with voting procedures.

One issue is that Native Americans may not be proficient in English (or Spanish) to be able to complete the ballot in either language but could benefit if the ballot were printed in their language, say, Ute or Dine, for example.

Yet, for some mysterious reason, ballots in New Mexico are printed in BOTH ENGLISH AND SPANISH.  

Perhaps that law could be changed to: Printed in English OR Spanish OR Dine OR.....

I say this is an idea whose time has come.

George Richmond

On 6/24/2020 9:06 PM, kwentworth17 at comcast.net <mailto:kwentworth17 at comcast.net>  wrote:

Hello League members-

We hope you are safe and healthy during this long summer. We will have a unit meeting at noon on July 9 for all members who are willing to join us on Zoom. We will have a panel of speakers to talk about the decisions made at the U.S. League of Women Voters virtual convention this week. That will be a great way to catch up with our national agenda and to start thinking about where we fit in the national priorities.

We also wanted to share a new study of our primary election problems that has just been released by the UNM School of Social Policy. It looks and what went wrong during the primary and suggests changes that might be made during the next legislative session in January. It points out specific problems in Sandoval County with allowing tribal members to vote and a possible solution. It also suggests a solution for everyone who didn’t get their absentee ballot back to the Bernalillo County Clerk in time for it to be counted.

League members are active currently on the Voter Guide. We are preparing questions for the candidate for November and Mary Wilson at t3wilson at aol.com <mailto:t3wilson at aol.com>  is looking for volunteers to help call candidates and work on ballot and bond questions and the informational section on how people can vote in November. This is all work that can be done virtually to protect those who are still social distancing. We will do an online and printed version of the Voter Guide for the November election.

We hope to see you soon, even if it is only on Zoom. I’ll send out the invitation closer to the meeting.

Karen Wentworth

Co-President, LWVCNM  

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George M. Richmond
152 Juniper Hill Road, NE
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E: geomrich1 at comcast.net <mailto:geomrich1 at comcast.net> 
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