“A voter initiative rolling back Republican-backed election law changes and expanding voting access will not appear on the November ballot, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Friday, issuing a final death knell after an on-again off-again series of court rulings.” (Associated Press 8.26.22)
Republicans want to stop us from voting. We won’t stop fighting for our right to cast our ballot.
This is what we are doing now to protect our right to vote
We organize Native and rural communities in northeastern Arizona and connect with voters daily. Our first task is to genuinely help one another. We serve our communities. Then we get out the vote for Democrats.
Here’s what a typical week looks like for our campaign:
- Hire and train local Indigenous organizers to connect with their communities
- Phone banking customized for our communities
- Canvassing customized for our communities
- Postcards to voters
- Information booths at flea markets and other public spaces
- Weekly community service events and give back to families
- Family Votes Matriarch recruitment and more
We started this effort because we want our communities to be heard
Our origin is important too, we were founded by those on the ground looking to change policy and grow our political power. Our authenticity allows us to thrive year round in historically underserved communities.
In 2019, the Northeast Arizona Native Democrats was founded by folks from the Navajo Nation and White Mountain Apache and Hopi tribes, as well as allies from small rural towns across Navajo, Apache, and Coconino Counties. In 2020, I was recruited and we created a campaign unlike any other in the Nation. We delivered big election wins for Democrats in 2020 and we are still present and active year round.
Missa Foy, our current chair of the Navajo County Democrats, started organizing in her community of Pinetop-Lakeside (Navajo County) to protect public education. Her children attend the local public school. In her work organizing on behalf of the schools it quickly became apparent to her that a new model for combating bad policy and building power on sovereign lands and rural Arizona was needed. This was the spark that our team fanned into a flame.
My story is a bit different, it took me several years to return home to Arizona to begin organizing in my homelands. I’ve worked on other campaigns throughout the country, then I was called home early in the pandemic of 2020. My mentor Peterson Zah and several community leaders recruited me and I started organizing in Navajo and Apache Counties.
Missa and I hit it off and as a collective of the Navajo County Democrats immediately began building our team of extraordinary organizers. We were a small core team of 4 then 8, then 10. At the height of the campaign we had 30 paid Indigenous organizers working in their communities during the 2020 presidential election year.
We set out to design a campaign program unlike any other; one that truly includes our communities. That means an organization we can be proud of so that our organizers can keep at this year round. Too often we’ve seen campaigns that burn out their best recruits. And too many campaigns come to our communities, ask for our vote, and then leave. Instead our model is based on investing in people and community.
Our network of tribal and non-tribal volunteers, organizers, and communities, have a lot of talent, knowledge, and strength. We encourage people to vote and get them to the polls, and we also see ourselves as partners who help our communities daily.
Missa and I have worked on some pretty crummy campaigns in the past and we wanted to do better and treat our people better. We saw how so many other campaigns missed and ignored our communities, overlooked opportunities, and sometimes down right refused to engage our regions because they didn’t think we mattered, or worse yet thought that our votes didn’t count. We saw the obvious gaps and saw them as strengths.
Our communities matter, our votes matter
The Northeast Arizona Native Democrats is a diverse coalition set across three counties, sometimes four, and we serve voters and give back to our communities. We are hiring and training the next generation of organizers, and highlight voter education and outreach, advocacy, and community service.
We’re proving to be a fixture in the communities we serve. We let folks know we're here not only to register them to vote and talk about the importance of being civically engaged, and get to know the Democratic candidates, but we are here to also help citizens with basic needs. About 30% of our organizers’ time is dedicated to helping the community, whether that's picking up elders and taking them on a grocery store run, or hosting community clean ups. Others have regularly delivered water, firewood, PPE, food-boxes, and just recently through one of our phone-banks, assisted an elder whose roof was blowing off in a storm. Several of our team members also organized or assisted with back-to-school drives for families in need, one organizer continues to collect clothing and toiletries for local domestic violence shelters and much more.
The great thing about hiring and supporting local organizers, is they know the needs in their communities best and if we can help directly we can, if we can’t, we do our best to help connect them to organizations or services that can.
Last year we worked hard to educate folks on redistricting, helped community members testify before the redistricting commission. Redistricting didn’t go the way we wanted and Republicans drew maps that favored their candidates. In some districts, like ours, they increased the number of Republican voters with the goal of drowning out Independent and Democratic voters. We are not giving up.
Native and rural Democratic voters can win midterm elections
“The great thing about midterms is that if Native Voters turn out in large numbers, our impact is greater than at any other time.
Everybody wants to vote in a presidential election year and not as many people are inclined in the midterms. Yet if you do turnout, you have more impact.
This is really the time to influence policy and to make the kind of changes you want.” - Mark Trahant, Shoshone Bannock
Right now, in this midterm election year, much of our time is dedicated to civic education and getting out the vote. Our organizers and volunteers are helping people register to vote, signing them up for early voting, explaining the process, and getting folks to sign petitions to get key voting rights, health care, and public education referendums on the November ballot.
This midterm election year we are doing everything we can to connect with voters and let them know how important their vote is, especially for our state seats. We have a long ballot and there are many critical seats that Democrats must win.
Past data shows voters turnout in higher numbers during presidential elections year than in the midterms. There are a lot of offices on the ballot: governor, secretary of state, attorney general, superintendent of schools, state treasurer, corporation commissioners, state representatives. And every elected official down ballot will have a lot to say about how our communities are included (or not) in legislation and funding.
There are so many issues that we have to fight to protect–– abortion rights, public school funding, voting rights, climate, water, community safety, and so many more. The leaders we elect are going to be in those spaces, in those seats, in those meetings drafting laws and policies that impact our daily lives for years to come and we need folks in there that are going to advocate for us.
Northeast Arizona Native Democrats regularly let voters know how powerful their vote can be. Arizona Indigenous and rural voting blocs overwhelmingly voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020. They also voted for Mark Kelly and Tom O'Halleran. These voting blocs can help swing elections in favor of the Democrats. We proved this in Arizona in 2020 and now we are building on that momentum to do it again.
This is how we stay engaged
We have on staff eight paid organizers, one executive director, and will be hiring more folks in the next two weeks. We also look for partnerships with organizations who either hire organizers through their structure and we work with them or they donate funds directly to us so we can hire and train. We may not have the same budget as a presidential election year, but will do as much as we can.
We’re also excited about our new Family Votes Matriarchs program and seeing a great response to this effort.
We've hired a matriarchs coordinator and through our weekly phone-banks and in-person meetups, we’ve recruited over 140 potential matriarchs so far who will then register their families and get them to the polls.
We have weekly tabling events in several key communities and we are trying to expand to more. At these tabling events we check voter status, register folks to vote, sign petitions, help answer any questions they have or just simply connect and talk about the issues, communities, or candidates. We have many voters who want to know what Democrats have done and we have information to share in English and organizers who are fluent speakers in Navajo, Apache and Hopi languages can help make that connection. Thankfully this Biden-Harris administration has delivered a lot for tribal communities and makes our jobs a bit easier.
Phone banking on tribal lands
We’re also operating with some incredible groups like Swing Left San Francisco and several Bay Area groups who not only donate, but connect us to an amazing network of volunteers who’ve stepped up since 2020 and love how we organize. For example our weekly phone-banks are unlike any other that you'll find in the campaign world because it's not about how many dials phone bankers make, it's about the quality of the conversations they have. We ask how our community members are doing and we listen. Should anyone we call need help, we try to connect them to a real resource. The main goal is to make sure voters know they have local organizers nearby who can help with voter registration, education, and more, and if they need translation assistance in one of our tribal languages, we have folks who do that too.
In 3+months our volunteers have made over 120,000 dials and we have teams who help lead three phone-banks a week; we started with one. We want to give a shout out to our volunteers who are excited and love making calls into tribal and rural regions to connect with voters who may otherwise not be reached by anyone else. We make sure volunteers participate in cultural competency training before they make any dials.
Not only do we give guided training, but we make sure to customize our scripts and messaging so that they actually make sense and mean something to our communities. Our phone banks are working because voters are being connected to local organizers and our phone bank volunteers are having amazing quality conversations with our voters in our region. They reported that many times voters are just excited that they have someone who called and that someone is concerned. Many voters expressed that it was nice to hear from folks who really do care how they're doing. The majority of calls made, according to our volunteers, have been impactful and often report back that this particular phone banking experience with us is unlike any other phone banks they've been a part of.
Postcard writing to tribal and rural voters
We also have a successful post writing program made up of volunteers from all across the country who have the option to use our customized postcards (or design their own), and donate their time and postage and mail cards to targeted voters in our area. The voters in the outreach efforts are many times folks we don’t have phone numbers for. And similarly to the phone banks we give guidance, and have a great team of volunteers who lead these efforts. We also make sure to customize our strategy, scripts. and messages so that it resonates with our voters.
We know the postcard writing program is working because our volunteers have specific messaging that also connects them to our local organizers so voters know they have someone nearby they can talk and connect to. Voters are having real conversations and making genuine connections because we let them know we are here to help. Organizers and volunteers have reported that recipients of our postcards have loved getting handwritten notes, were excited to learn we paid attention, thanked them for voting, appreciated the beautiful artwork, and most importantly received vital information. We even had one voter make a two-hour round-trip visit to Winslow, AZ to attend an in-person event we had and showed up with all his postcards in hand and said “So you're the folks writing these cards. I wanted to see who was writing me.” The voter that day got to connect with the chair of our county Democratic party and met with several other community members. We are hearing more great stories like this all the time from organizers and volunteers successfully connecting with voters.
Canvassing in tribal and rural communities
Several field team members recently started canvassing in tribal and rural areas and this experience is not your typical door-knocking experience. First, the database system that every campaign uses (NGPVAN) does not work in our areas because this data system is based on physical addressing which we don’t always have in our regions. Most of our folks use PO Boxes and this is not accepted by many data based systems, including our voter registration systems. So we have to think of other models and other ways to collect data and record it. Let’s reiterate, NGPVAN does not work for our area, our voters, and so many times we're going out and communities cold and that's okay. Thankfully, many folks so far have been really nice and kind and appreciate the information. In addition to database systems that don’t work well, we have to tackle long distances (walking and driving) between homes and communities. And because we're not in an urban area with apartment buildings and houses right next to each other or have physical street addresses, many voters we do connect with are excited to get a new visitor and want to learn more. For those who don’t want visitors, we respect the space. A big plus for our organizers and volunteers, they aren't shy of driving 4 to 5 hours round-trip to canvasses in some of our communities. That's the nature of organizing rural and tribal areas.
Other canvassing tips for our regions
- Our team is still being very careful because of covid and follow safety precautions by wearing masks, sanitizing, and keep a good distance. Organizers, volunteers, and voters have to feel safe.
- Good shoes are a must because it's all weather out there and anyone can get stuck in mud, sand, or rough terrain.
- Be careful of the elements; heat, rain, high wind, and rez (reservation) dogs.
- Rez dogs are a fixture in many tribal communities and experiences can range from light hearted encounters to very serious because people in our communities have been attacked by them and several have even died from these attacks over the years. So we have to take this very seriously and keep our folk safe. Canvassers travel often with dog treats.
- Safety for everyone is our number one priority.
Recording and capturing data (NPGVAN) will always be a challenge, thankfully we have a highly skilled data team that is able to work with what we got and customize our systems so we can capture critical voter information. Our data gurus for tribal and rural regions help us make sense of it all and shout out to volunteer extraordinaire Steve GH and many others who’ve led this effort for years and helps us maintain and clean up the data.
Help us do more
We need to hire more folks in targeted communities across our region and we need additional resources for ads and food. Local and tribal media (radio and newspaper ads), signage, and food, brings people out. It helps get folks' attention and brings people together. Food, conversation, and visiting, naturally and culturally, brings the communities we serve together. Especially, after traveling between long distances in state (AZ LD-06 and AZ LD-07) and congressional districts (CD-02) like ours. Our districts combined are about the size of the state of Indiana. AZ-CD 02 is still the most Native district in the county and our people here deserve to be heard and engaged.
We don't have to tell you how important Arizona is because we can hold on to a key senate seat, and re-elect Rep. Tom O'Halleran even though Republicans tried to defeat him with a map. We also have critical state and local offices that need our help to win and then deliver on the policy issues we care about.
Donate directly here: secure.actblue.com/...
You may also join us for weekly events or help support our Family Vote Matriarchs.
Circle of Friends with a $5 recurring monthly donation or our Circle of Matriarchs with a $25 recurring monthly donation.
Checks may also be mailed to: Navajo County Democrats PO Box 144, Lakeside, AZ 85929
Ahéhee.
Jaynie Parrish, Executive Director
Navajo County Democrats