Navajo Nation sues Apache County officials over voting rights violations

Navajo Nation election officials say Apache County’s 2024 failures were not a one-off glitch but part of a pattern that has repeatedly burdened Diné voters in Chinle, Lukachukai, Lupton, Rock Point, St. Michael’s, Wheatfields, Dennehotso, Cottonwood and Fort Defiance. In a second election-related lawsuit filed Nov. 12, 2024, the Navajo Nation Department of Justice targeted Apache County Recorder Larry Noble, Elections Director Rita Vaughn and the Apache County Board of Supervisors, alleging the county’s handling of early ballots and ballot curing interfered with voting rights on and around the Navajo Nation.

The new case came after Election Day problems that already forced Apache County Superior Court intervention. The first lawsuit sought a two-hour extension after ballot printers failed at most polling places, emergency ballots ran short, lines grew long and some sites opened late. A judge later extended voting hours until 9 p.m. at nine polling sites on the Navajo Nation, giving voters more time after the county’s system buckled under pressure.

The second filing focused on a different failure point: mail ballots. Navajo officials said many voters on the reservation rely on county and state tracking tools because mail delivery is often delayed, and the county’s processing created a risk that valid ballots would be rejected over signature issues. The lawsuit sought an additional three-day period for ballot curing, a change that advocates said could help about 175 Navajo voters identified as needing notice and extra time to fix signature problems.

Navajo leaders have said Apache County’s election breakdowns in 2024 fit a broader history of disenfranchisement in previous elections, not an isolated administrative lapse. Public hearings followed, along with renewed pressure from Native voting advocates, the Navajo Nation Council, and others who argued that the county’s election system had repeatedly failed voters spread across large distances and dependent on fragile mail service.

Apache County later moved toward voting centers for future elections, a shift Native voting advocates had pressed for after the 2024 failures. For voters in eastern Arizona and across the reservation, the fight now is not just about one hard election, but whether county officials will change procedures before the next cycle so polling-place breakdowns and mail-ballot delays do not again decide who gets to vote.