Each monthly virtual meeting for Native American voters in Arizona lasts one hour and focuses on a theme. There are three to four guest speakers with different backgrounds related to the theme of the month. The theme for June is Native Voter Outreach: Surveying Rural and Urban Strategies. (Getty Images)
The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office is working to reach Native voters across the state with Native Voting Hour, a way to hear directly from voters within Native communities and provide them with information about their voting rights.
Native Voting Hour is a monthly series of virtual meetings held on Zoom on the last Tuesday of every month at 2:00 PM Mountain Standard Time. The meeting is open to the public and dedicated to empowering and educating Native voters in the Grand Canyon State.
“The program was created as a way to make our office approachable from the community,” said Millicent Michelle Pepion, the outreach coordinator and tribal liaison for the Arizona Secretary of State’s office.
Pepion understands that a virtual meeting in the middle of the afternoon may not be ideal for many people. However, setting the program to a fixed time every month will help ensure consistency and reliability.
Each monthly virtual meeting lasts one hour and focuses on a theme. There are three to four guest speakers with different backgrounds related to the theme of the month.
The theme for June is Native Voter Outreach: Surveying Rural and Urban Strategies, featuring Rosetta Walker, deputy clerk of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, Liv Knocki, Wingbeat 88’s executive director, and Susan Levy, communications and community division. relationship director for NATIVE HEALTH.
Pepion said the Secretary of State’s Office often works with various organizations, universities, school departments and tribal councils. However, the Native Voting Hour program is different.
The program is a way for the secretary of state to reach out directly to members of the indigenous community, she said, and let them know that the agency is trying to understand what issues are happening within indigenous communities and how best to address them can be addressed.
Pepion said their work is to reach Indigenous people who are hesitant to register to vote, aren’t motivated to vote, or need help understanding how their vote can promote change.
As tribal liaison for the secretary of state, Pepion said she works to reach out to all 22 tribes in Arizona and has visited about 12 so far. She attends community events and talks about the services her office provides to Indigenous communities.
“We work directly with tribal councils and we would like to continue the relationships we have built and build even more,” she added. “We do boots on the ground and don’t try to just stay in Maricopa County.”
Pepion said the Secretary of State’s efforts seek to inform Indigenous community leaders and help get more people involved in voting.
“If we can help the Native American community in this effort to get out the vote, we will actually be helping other communities who are having similar experiences,” she added.
The next Native Voting Hour is scheduled for June 25. Walker, one of the speakers, has been advocating for Native voting rights in Arizona for decades and has worked for the past twelve years as a deputy registrar in the Maricopa County Recorder’s Deputy Registrar Program. .
When she learned that Arizona’s secretary of state has a tribal connection and began organizing voting hours for indigenous people, she was excited to participate in any way she could.
“I plant seeds of advocacy,” Walker said of her work.
She said she is planting the seeds people need to understand what is happening in the Legislature so people know “who the candidates are and can make wise decisions in the elections.”
“I’m just encouraging you and showing you the power of the vote,” Walker added.
Walker, 63, is Sicangu Lakota of the Rosebud Sioux tribe in South Dakota, but she has lived in Arizona for nearly three decades. Walker said when she started advocating for voting rights, she always made sure to share her family’s story.
Walker said her family has many military veterans, including her grandfather, who served during World War I, but when he returned home, like all other native veterans, he did not have the right to vote even though they were citizens of the Rosebud Sioux . Tribe in South Dakota.
“I do that because so many people don’t understand the power of voting,” Walker said. She hopes her work to get more information out to the community about Indigenous voices will help voters understand how powerful their voices are.
“You can impact your local elections, your tribal elections, your state and federal elections,” she said.
Walker said when she first started volunteering at the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, there weren’t many resources shared with Native voters. She didn’t see many Native people participating as poll workers or becoming deputy clerks.
Walker said she’s seen that slowly change over the past five years, and she thinks it’s because of the advocacy Indigenous people are doing within their communities.
“If you want to be part of your community, the best way to get involved is by volunteering,” she said. “Imagine becoming a poll worker (and) learning how to register people to vote.”
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