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Native voters living on tribal land often face barriers to voting. In Nevada, those Native voters can now cast a ballot online. Nevada Public Radio's Paul Boger reports.
PAUL BOGER, BYLINE: Indigenous voters have historically turned out to vote at much lower rates than white voters. One reason is that tribal communities have faced historical and geographic obstacles to casting a ballot, including a lack of polling locations and unreliable mail service.
BRIAN MASON: It's one of the day-to-day challenges that you come to accept.
BOGER: That's Brian Mason, chairman of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation, which straddles the Nevada-Idaho state line. In previous elections, anyone who wanted to vote in person had to drive two hours away on Election Day. Mason says a lot of people didn't get a chance to vote.
MASON: You know, in the past, it's been, well, if you couldn't make it to Elko, then you just didn't make it to Elko.
BOGER: This year voters living on the Duck Valley Reservation or any of the other 27 federally recognized tribal communities in the state can vote online using what's called the EASE system, available through the Nevada Secretary of State's website. The state developed it in 2014 to allow members of the armed forces overseas and others to cast absentee ballots online.
MATHILDA MILLER: I think it's great to see that this voting tool is being expanded to our people.
BOGER: Mathilda Miller is with Native Voters Alliance of Nevada, one of the organizations that pushed for the expansion. She says EASE, along with voting by mail, allows Native voters in the state to have their voices heard like never before.
MILLER: It's allowing people who have the means and the infrastructure to actually cast your vote. I'm excited about it.
BOGER: However, there are concerns about the security of voting online. In 2022, a group of experts gathered by UC Berkeley warned it's infeasible to say internet ballots are 100% safe using current cybersecurity standards. But Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar says his office took steps to ensure this system is as secure as possible.
CISCO AGUILAR: We built it here in Nevada with our own team, with careful understanding of the security issues and the security challenges. You know, security is our No. 1 priority with the EASE system. We want to ensure that every ballot that's cast gets counted and that it's being done by an eligible Nevada voter.
BOGER: For the Native Voters Alliance in Nevada, those concerns are part of an effort to continue disenfranchising Native voters. Still, online voting will not improve turnout among Native voters overnight, mainly because the people who already lack reliable mail service also lack broadband. For NPR News, I'm Paul Boger in Reno, Nevada. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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