During the last election, Peggy Phillips would have had to drive four hours, round-trip, from her home on the Navajo reservation to the predominantly white city of Monticello to cast her vote in person. That’s because San Juan County had closed all of its polling places and switched to a mail-only voting system ahead of the 2014 general election. But Phillips never received her ballot in the mail in time. Even if she had, she isn’t comfortable voting in English and would have needed help from a translator, since there are usually words on the ballot she doesn’t understand, according to a federal lawsuit she has joined against the county for violating the Voting Rights Act. Phillips was unable to vote that year. Now, she’s one of seven people, along with the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, suing San Juan County for violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Their lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court of Utah, claiming that the new voting system “unreasonably hindered” Navajo citizens’ ability to vote on equal terms with white voters. If left unchanged, “these practices will continue to do so in the 2016 election cycle and beyond,” the lawsuit reads.
“Navajo is a traditionally unwritten language,” according to the lawsuit, and the mail-only system fails to “provide adequate oral assistance to limited English-proficient Native American voters.”
The lawsuit also claims that the mail-only system relies on an unreliable postal service that isn’t easy to access and has limited delivery in the rural portions of San Juan County, where many Navajo voters live. If they want to vote in Monticello, they have to travel — on average — twice as far as white residents across Utah’s largest county, the lawsuit adds. That challenge is exacerbated “for a significant number of Navajo residents who lack access to reliable transportation and must contend with poor road conditions.”
Full Article: San Juan County sued for violating Voting Rights Act | The Salt Lake Tribune.