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- By Neely Bardwell
Native Vote 2024. IllumiNative, a Native woman-led social justice organization dedicated to building power for Native peoples, and Native Organizers Alliance (NOA), the largest Native-woman-led network of grassroots voting organizers in the country, announced the 2024 Natives Vote campaign, a national Native-led voter engagement and mobilization effort aimed at achieving another historic Native voter turnout in the upcoming presidential election.
With an emphasis on 12 key states with significant Native populations, including Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Alaska this year's initiative will leverage both digital and grassroots organizing strategies to overcome barriers that Native people face in accessing election resources.
The two organizations partnered before for the 2020 edition of the Natives Vote campaign. Crystal Echohawk (Pawnee Nation), founder and CEO of IllumiNative, explains that they are taking the things they learned from that year and applying it to their efforts this election.
“One of the first things we learned is this; community research was really important to understand what's important to our people. What are the things that we care about most if we're going to go out and vote for a system that hasn't always treated us well? What are the motivations, and what are the barriers?” explained Echohawk. “Now that we understand what's important to people, that's going to drive our messaging in the way that we want to go out and talk to our fellow Native voters, or potential Native voters, so we're not just spewing slogans and stuff at them.”
IllumiNative and NOA have launched a new website that will serve as an organizing hub for Native peoples. The site provides tools for checking voter registration status, understanding state-specific voter requirements, and making a plan to vote. It also offers resources on local elections and issues that matter most to Native communities, informed by the latest Indigenous Futures Survey—the most comprehensive Native-led research initiative in the country.
The top issues that Illuminative and Native Organizers Alliance are hearing from Native voters through campaigning and through the survey, are the economy, tribal sovereignty, and health. For Native women, protecting reproductive health is at the forefront of their concerns.
As part of the Natives Vote campaign, IllumiNative will provide grants between $50,000-$75,000 to grassroots Native organizations dedicated to voter engagement and mobilization. Selected grantees include: Native Movement (Alaska), Protect the Sacred (Arizona), Arizona Native Vote (Arizona), Miigwech (Michigan), Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI) (Minnesota), Nevada Civic Engagement Task Force (Nevada).
Through a collaboration with the Center for Social and Media Impact’s Good Laugh Project, the campaign is producing over 100 pieces of comedic GOTV content which will be distributed via text banking and social media. This is in addition to partnering with Native Public Media to run GOTV radio ads on major Tribal radio stations in target states, and working with Amplifier to produce GOTV artwork that will be used for posters, social media and swag with designs that reflect the values and identities of each respective community and state.
Organizing voters alone is only part of the battle to get Natives out to vote. There are also many voter suppression efforts that are placing barriers in the way for Native voters.
“We see a lot of voter suppression and attacks on Native voting rights. Things that they do like making polling locations really, really far away from our people who are living on reservations, or strict voter ID laws,” said Echohawk. “I think everybody on some level is starting to feel some anxiety as this gets closer, but we have a goal to register at least 20,000 new voters this year. We've provided grants to these organizations not just to get people registered, but to help people make a voting plan for election day.”
Illuminative will also have rapid response funding available for communities to help with organizing things like mass transit to polls, gas, feeding volunteers to really support people and communities coming together and making sure the Native voice is heard. Every Wednesday night, Illuminative does phone and text banking, and trains people on how to do it.
Judith LeBlanc, Executive Director of Native Organizers Alliance explains that this election is not just about electing the president, but protecting tribal sovereignty.
“Mobilizing the Native vote this year is about protecting democracy for all. When we turn out the Native vote, we demonstrate our community power and political significance,” said LeBlanc. “We have 200 moccasins on the ground working with 24 Native organizations and 13 Tribal Nations to register voters, raise awareness, and drive the Native voter turnout. NOA and IllumiNative know that engaging more Native people in the political process helps create better conditions for our communities and prepares for structural reforms for more self determination to achieve our ancestors’ dreams of sovereignty.”
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