Back-to-back storms have hammered the Navajo Nation in recent weeks, prompting concerns from local officials that washed-out roads could prevent hundreds of voters from making it to the polls in the country’s largest Native American reservation.
Navajo polling sites often take on a festive atmosphere on Election Day. But in Rock Point, a hard-hit community in northeast Arizona, many residents found themselves stranded on Tuesday behind impassible dirt roads or shaky bridges.
“Our community has already endured so much,” said Valinda Shirley, the vice president of the Navajo Nation’s Rock Point chapter. “We should not lose our voice because our roads are underwater or damaged.”
She pleaded for help from the county, state and tribe, but said she had not received a response by Tuesday afternoon. An advisory from Arizona’s secretary of state said the only available route to Rock Point’s polling site “may require a lengthy detour.”
Apache County, where Rock Point is, has been directing residents to a car pool service coordinated by the nonprofit Arizona Native Vote, which has offered rides to the polls via mud bogging, a type of off-roading on four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Rock Point is in Arizona’s Second Congressional District, which has been surprisingly competitive this cycle. Representative Eli Crane, a Republican incumbent, is trying to fend off a challenge from Jonathan Nez, a Democrat and former president of the Navajo Nation.
Tribal voters are also choosing their next president, and Ms. Shirley worries that residents blocked from polls could lose the chance to cast a decisive ballot. “It’s going to be very close,” she said.
The post ‘Mud Bogging’ to the Polls in Storm-Soaked Navajo Nation appeared first on New York Times.
