Ep. 17: Counting The Native Vote

Stephanie (Homewytewa) Motzkin is a native Tucsonan and has served as the Voter Outreach Coordinator to the Tohono O’odham Nation and a certified Election Officer at the Pima County Recorder’s Office since 2019. At the Recorder’s Office Stephanie has helped build the Outreach program to serve not only the Tohono O’odham Nation, but all of Pima County. Her duties include but are not limited to keeping voters of the Tohono O’odham Nation informed of important voter and election information, leading voter registration training sessions, assisting new citizens with voter registration at Naturalization Ceremonies, and providing outreach at events such as the Tohono O’odham Nation Rodeo and Fair, Tucson Pride, Nam to Sand Jam, Disability Pride Day, and Juneteenth, to name a few. In this episode she shared her goals of reaching into the Tohono O’odham community to encourage, educate, and get individuals registered to vote. History shows that Native  Americans were given citizenship in 1924 with the signing of the Indian Citizenship Act, which by the way this year in June marks 100 years since that time. In many cases Native people weren’t guaranteed the right to vote in all states until 1964. Voting barriers have existed and still exist in Native communities today, a few examples such as, in most tribal communities there are no physical addresses, lack of transportation to voting sites, and tribal identification often times gets denied unless you are on tribal lands. For the most part the fight to have equal access to the ballot box for Native Americans is still a struggle. During the episode Stephanie touches on calling attention to the concerns of Native issues and how they can get involved in the voting process. Stephanie is of Tohono O’odham, Hopi, Pima, and Hispanic heritage and is proud to serve her people, her county, and her country through her work with the Recorder’s Office.

Helpful links about voter registration:

Pima County Recorder’s Office – Voter Registration

Secretary of State’s Office

Service Arizona

Here is a short form interview with Stephanie: