Native Vote 2020 is a non-profit organization that was created by the National Congress of American Indians to protect and encourage the voting behaviors of American citizens of Native American descent. The organization is a nonpartisan initiative that does not push individuals to vote on either side of the political spectrum, just to exercise their democratic right to vote in national and regional elections no matter their political affiliation. Native Vote functions with the help of the NCAI, as well as with the help of volunteers that act as representatives and instructors. Their initiatives as listed on their official website are voter registration and Get-Out-The-Native-Vote, election protection, education, and data collection.
Situational Analysis
Native Vote 2020 had a variety of strengths in their campaign, one of them being that the initiative was created by the NCAI, which was founded in 1944. The support from such a well-known and well-established existing organization gives the campaign credibility and weight with the publics that they are attempting to target. They also have the ability to speak with a wider audience because the NCAI has an extensive reach to various Native communities across the country. The biggest strength of the organization was that they had a clearly outlined problem backed by years of research. Unfortunately, the organization had a few weaknesses as well, the largest being a lack of volunteers willing to take leadership positions. Each state should ideally have a Native Vote coordinator, who can help organize registration events and provide resources in a more localized capacity. However, there are a number of states who function without an established coordinator, most likely due to a lack of volunteers and manpower. Native Vote 2020 was presented with a host of opportunities during this election cycle, the biggest of which was a polarizing ballot that in and of itself was a motivator to draw people to the polls. They also saw an increase in individuals turning 18 in the Native American population, which was an opportunity to motivate new voters at a young age. The biggest threat to the campaign was the worldwide pandemic that hit in March of 2020, which put a halt to in-person efforts.
Native Vote conducted primary research during the 2012 and 2014 election cycles to measure data on Native voter registration and voter turnout, and discovered a slew of methodological issues. Voter suppression, whether intended or not, is a very real problem for Native Americans, especially if they live on reservations. There is a distinct lack of information available on how and where to register and vote, made much more difficult by decreased access to reliable Internet on many reservations. Centers to register and vote are typically held far away from reservations, resulting in long travel distances. This puts a strain on individuals who do not have reliable or easy access to transportation, or those who work multiple jobs. Many experience language barriers, a lack of access to mail services, a lack of registered residential addresses, and difficulties acquiring valid forms of identification. All of these issues, in conjunction with a deep-seated distrust of the American government, result in a decrease in voter turnout from Native American individuals. In 2012, Native Vote discovered that 34% of voting-age Native Americans were not registered to vote, equaling 1.2 million potential voters. This was 1-10% lower than other non-white racial and ethnic groups. Native Vote shares their data collection and data tools with tribal leaders across the nation to spread awareness of voting patterns and work to expand their pool of resources.
The Native Vote 2020 initiative identified the problem that they wished to tackle early on: Native Americans are not taking full advantage of their constitutional right to vote, which would benefit them and their needs in the long-run. This problem stemmed from a lack of resources that made this process attainable for the Native population, and a lack of education about how, where, and when to vote. The broad goal of Native Vote 2020 was to increase Native American voter registration and turnout in upcoming national elections. In a narrower sense, their objective was to provide toolkits, education materials and opportunities, and resources to Native American communities in order to increase non-partisan voter turnout from the Native American demographic for the 2020 election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Their target audience for this initiative was individuals of voting age of Native American heritage and descent, and more specifically those that live on reservations in the United States.
The strategies for attaining this goal included providing youth outreach programs in conjunction with other youth non-profit organizations in order to encourage new and future voters. As discovered in Native Vote’s primary research, half a million Native American youths turn 18 every four years. By providing youth outreach programs that educate this growing demographic, Native Vote identified and seized an opportunity to instill a sense of civic duty and engagement in a large portion of the Native American population. In addition to youth programs, Native Vote also worked to provide voter protection with the help of Election Protection coordinators and legal advocates. The organization disseminated education materials so that new and returning Native American voters knew their voting rights; this was a necessary component of their initiative, as changes to the voter registration and voter identification process were implemented over the past 10 years. Another strategy they used was providing education to Native Americans on candidates and ballot measures, educating candidates on issues that pertain to Native American communities and encouraging the inclusion of Native concerns to their platforms, and encouraging Native Americans to run for public office. This strategy was used to make sure Native Americans were informed of their choices before attempting to vote, as well as getting them more involved in the political sphere. The thought process was that if more candidates were running with platforms that included Native issues and concerns, more Natives would feel compelled and motivated to go out and vote them into office.
Of the tactics the Native Vote organization used, the use of infographics was the most common. These infographics were posted both on their official website, as well as disseminated on their official social media sites. They outlined key issues on candidates’ platforms that might encourage Native Americans to register and vote, as well as highlighted the lack of representation of Natives in political office and the low number of Native turnouts at the polls. These infographics also informed Native Americans on the voter suppression that happens in their community and how they can combat this by knowing their rights, providing resources that can help them overcome the obstacles that lead to voter suppression, encouraging Native Americans to report voter suppression when they experience it, and providing detailed information on how to do so. The most important infographic that Native Vote disseminated was the one that provided full and detailed plans on how to vote; this infographic explained how to check voter registration status, explained how to find their polling place, how to receive transportation if they cannot provide it themselves, how to request a mail-in ballot and voting deadlines state-by-state, and the kinds of identification that are valid and/or required per state. While the goal of this particular material was not to motivate Native Americans to vote, it provided clear instruction on how to do so, which might have been the obstacle blocking many Natives from actually getting to the polls.
Other tactics employed by the Native Vote 2020 initiative were informational toolkits, updating both the Native Vote webpage and their social media accounts (most notably their Twitter page), distributing e-newsletters and promotional items, releasing Public Service Announcements (PSA’s), and hosting telephone conferences, webinars, and training sessions. The toolkits that they compiled were resources for volunteers to help get their communities out to the polls, which included possible scripts, checklists for running a successful registration event, and tactics on how to speak with candidates in their district. Native Vote also hosted webinar events that included special guest speakers like the President of the National Congress of American Indians. They kicked off the election season in May 2020 with their Native Vote Rally, a livestream which currently has a total of 273 views on YouTube. The link for this livestream can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZdPNZ_spYE&t=164s
Native Vote’s message for the 2020 election cycle was straightforward: a revitalization of civic engagement in America’s Native American communities is imperative for the representation of Native American values in politics. They also aimed at spreading messages that encouraged Native Americans to understand their rights as voters, and to understand how important it is to perform this civic responsibility – not just to push their own concerns to the forefront, but to have their voice be heard and represented as American citizens.
In terms of creative execution, the campaign made the most of their limited resources amidst a worldwide pandemic. The addition of this new obstacle posed new barriers, and the organization had to accommodate the changes to a completely digital campaign. Turning their in-person forums into an online webinar/teleconference experience was actually beneficial to the campaign, as it allowed them to record the events and post them to the NCAI official YouTube channel for interested individuals to view even after the event had ended. Native Vote’s social media pages were also the proper channel for the dissemination of e-newsletters and infographics, with their Twitter page having a total of 4,222 followers. Their tweets were also retweeted by the NCAI official page, which has over 58,000 followers and gets more engagement and views than the Native Vote page itself.
In researching articles about the Native Vote 2020 campaign, there was limited coverage of the initiative outside of small, local newspapers. This might have been a pitfall in the campaign’s PR strategy – because there was not a lot of coverage of the campaign’s efforts, there might have been a lack of press releases and interaction with the formal media as the campaign ran. Some stories written about the campaign and their goals were “Native voters still find obstacles on Election Day, but advocates work to remove barriers” and “Protecting the Native vote: How Election Day played out in Indian Country” by AZ Central, “National Congress of American Indians Highlights National Voter Registration Day and Native Vote” by Red Lake Nation News, and “Native Americans Could Help Swing Arizona – But Many Struggle to Cast Their Ballot” by Time. What we discovered was that even though these articles all explicitly mentioned the Native Vote 2020 campaign, not one offered information about the campaign that was not already made evident on Native Vote’s official website. In the story, “Protecting the Native vote: How Election Day played out in Indian Country” by AZ Central, there were statements from individuals who had volunteered with the initiative, but no formal statements from representatives or leaders within the organization. This leads us to believe that there was limited contact between the organization and the print media, and that the campaign relied heavily on social media coverage instead.
Current Information
Following Native Vote’s PR campaign and the accomplishments they achieved, they continue to use their platforms and tactics to make more change for the Native Americans in our country. Using similar tactics as they did while attempting to create equal voting rights for Native American people, they take to social media to spread awareness and begin conversations now that Biden is in office.
On January 28, 2021 the Native Vote organization took to their social media platforms a quote made by President Joe Biden stating, “I commit to appoint leaders to the Justice Department who will challenge every law designed to suppress the Native Vote”. As they post this quote by our president, they follow by expressing their overall goal to help their people as they explain they will not go to him with their list of orders to change until the people explain what they feel needs to change. This tactic done by them expresses the want to include their followers needs and express how Native Vote is all about unity and equality. After hearing from their followers, they continued the discussion and posted to Instagram on February 16th that they successfully scheduled virtual meetings to discuss the Biden-Harris administration creation of an official plan for Tribal Nations. Native Vote has organized four zoom meetings to discuss this in the beginning of March with tribal leaders, “Four virtual meetings will happen based on region, and the federal agency has followed through on inviting tribal leaders to participate last week”.
After the natives had a large impact in the 2020 presidential election due to this campaign over the course of 2020, they are currently continuing to promote their campaigns success. A current success after their campaign and collaboration was for Oregon to offer rehab instead of prison. They took to their social media accounts explaining how this will be life-changing for Native Americans and people of color, “Decriminalizing drugs offers immediate results in supporting the end of the mass incarceration era, which has disproportionately affected Indigenous, Latino, and African Americans since the beginning”. Social media being the main source of their ongoing campaign is a strength as it not only gets their messages and information across but allows for interaction amongst their followers, open discussions to happen, as well as the continuation of shares. In public relations some may not understand the power social media has and following their previous 2020 campaign efforts, their social media allow that large following to continue to support and spread their message.
COVID-19 was a significant part of 2020 and continues to be in 2021. It played a large factor in the 2020 presidential election as it was a test for how each candidate could and would handle a global pandemic. With President Joe Biden now in office he has spoken of a large portion of money to go into a COVID-19 relief package to help those across America that were affected by the pandemic. Native Vote has spoken up and, in their efforts, has currently been specifically included in that package. They announced on their social media accounts to bring attention to Biden’s claims of sending $20 billion to tribal governments out of the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, “Tribes will evenly split $1 billion and $19 billion will be split as determined by a formula from the U.S. Department of Treasury, said Holly Cook, Red Lake Ojibwe and partner at Spirit Rock Consulting”.
Native Vote has not stopped as their newest campaign they have created in which they are asking people for support for Congresswoman Deb Haaland with her nomination for Secretary of the Interior. With billboards in several locations and posts all over social media, you can find their powerful message stating, “The first people of this land, the last to receive a vote.” Congresswoman Deb Haaland has not yet been confirmed for her nomination of Secretary of the Interior as once again the native vote is being suppressed. They have posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to bring attention to this as they have asked for people to write in and call the US capital to confirm her nomination. They have included the number as well as other information needed for people to help them bring awareness to yet another Native American’s vote being suppressed, but in this case an unconfirmed nomination.
News Releases
Native Vote had a large media presence and a large number of informational resources to inform the public. The website is a great resource to find infographics and the Native Vote’s media presence for voters to get important information and to learn about the initiatives. Native Vote released an hour-long video to discuss the purpose of this campaign on its YouTube channel. The overall theme was why it is important for Native Americans to have a voice, how they can do it and the benefit it will have on elections. It also has many fact sheets, PSAs, posters and brochures for the public to reference that are very detailed about the election process and how to get involved. Native Vote’s best resource is their website due to the large information that can be found. NCAI does not just have the Native Vote campaign but is an organization that shares resources such as press releases and media sources on Native American and Alaska Native communities to inform the public about tribal governments and political decisions. The most recent press release released on Jan. 26, 2021 was to share that President Joe Biden signed the “Memorandum on Tribal Consultation and Strengthening Nation-to-Nation Relationships” memorandum acknowledging federal trust and treaty obligations to tribal nations.
Native Vote did not appear in many other media other than its own. I think this is something that could have been improved to gain more awareness and to not just target Native Americans, but branch out to other publics to show a societal issue. Native voters were portrayed in the media in several different perceptions, but Native Vote as a campaign was not present in the media. Native voters were mostly seen as rigging the election for President Joe Biden and being a large factor to his victory in the election. Past President Donald Trump wanted to sue Nevada Native Vote for buying votes when it had its Get-Out-The-Vote efforts by handing out T-shirts and food at the polls. There was political confrontation when it came to discussing the importance of Native Voters in the 2020 election.
Evaluation
From our perspective, Native Vote made good use of the opportunities that were provided to them, even despite the nationwide pandemic that occurred right in the middle of their campaign. They effectively utilized social media resources to spread their message and educate the public, as well as hosted online webinars that have the potential to reach a wide section of their targeted audience. However, our critiques are aimed at their use of effective traditional media coverage. From an outsider’s perspective, it does not appear that they were able to make much contact with different channels of print media, resulting in a small amount of newspaper coverage about their campaign. Getting their message and personal statements into a large, reputable newspaper like the New York Times or the Washington Post would have gone a long way in garnering public support and interest in their grassroots campaign, even outside the Native American community. The lack of press release materials that were specifically related to the Native Vote campaign is also a telling sign that there needed to be more effective communication with outside channels, besides their social media accounts. Besides this feedback, it is evident that the Native vote itself was a big deciding factor in the 2020 election results, especially in swing states like Arizona. An article by High Country News showed that even in states that turned red in the election, almost all counties that overlapped indigenous and native land went blue. An article by NBC News also cited a 40-60% increase in voter turnout in Navajo Nations during this 2020 election cycle. Indigenous candidates also did well in this election cycle, with six Native candidates being elected to Congress next term. It is unclear if Native voters showed up at the polls because of how polarizing the candidates were, or if it was directly because of the efforts of Native Vote 2020 and other similar campaigns. More research will need to be done to determine if this was a causation, or simply a correlation. There has been no formal evaluation on the part of Native Vote to determine the exact results of their individual campaign efforts. This is another critique of the campaign: it has been almost four months since the 2020 election has ended and there has been no thorough evaluation by Native Vote to show the effects of their campaign, nor has this information been made public. The public cannot make an informed opinion about the effectiveness of the campaign without some sort of evaluation on the part of the organization.
The Native American Voting Rights campaign, created by the Native American Rights Fund, is a similar initiative that can learn from the Native Vote 2020 campaign. They are also a grassroots organization that serves to protect Native Americans’ voting rights and encourage consistent voting behavior across the Native community. Relatively small organizations like these, who protect disenfranchised groups of people, should make a distinct and organized effort to have their stories disseminated in reputable newspapers; this allows them to reach all corners of their targeted audience and beyond. NAVR also has limited newspaper coverage, and shows that they rely heavily on their social media presence for support. More advertising of their events could also go a long way in spreading their message to as many individuals as possible. Unlike the Native Vote campaign, their official website provides updates on what their organization is accomplishing as news is released, which is much more user-friendly for individuals looking to learn more about how the organization uses their influence.
Evaluation: Four Directions
Four Directions is another campaign that has the same message they want to spread as Native Vote. This campaign uses different public relations tactics to bring awareness to Native Americans’ voting rights, voter protection, voter engagement, and voter empowerment. The Native Vote campaign was actually hosted by Four Directions as well as they use all the same social media accounts to get their word out. They collaborated together to form a bigger campaign to spread their important message of the Native American vote being suppressed.
After evaluation, we have discovered that their use of social media is a large strength in their tactics as it is one of the most modern and powerful ways of delivering a message. If used correctly and consistently, social media has the power to make anything go viral. We believe that consistently posting the same message across all of their channels has allowed them to build a following and place that their audience can find and hear their media posts on either Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Twitter. We also found that Native Vote has grown strong enough to have their own hashtag on TikTok where people went and posted about the issue at stake and solved it by bringing large attention to it as TikTok can allow for things to go viral a lot easier. Something that is a trend amongst Four Directions and Native Vote is their lack of actual media coverage. This is a pattern that there are minimal news releases on large platforms, news coverage, or overall, any physical news prints in reference to their organizations.
The differences amongst the two even though Native Vote is hosted by Four Directions is Native Vote held events for people to come and hear about the issue for the year of 2020. As it did have a large impact and the events were a success, this was only done for a year and the attention that could continuously be brought to the issue if Four Directions chose to continue this public relations tactic would be a large benefit to them. They only seem to announce their news, messages, and channel their followers through social media and their website. There needs to be more speaking events whether on zoom or socially distanced small gatherings as in person contact with one another is a strong way to spread a message to others.
PR Interview
Although we attempted to get into contact with numerous PR professionals that would have a thorough understanding of the Native Vote initiative, including Native Vote themselves and the NCAI, we were unable to make contact with anyone that could give us insights into this case study. This could be due to a lack of manpower on the part of Native Vote’s communication team, or the fact that they are coming off of a very important election cycle. Either way, we will be updating this section of our case study once we are able to discuss the case with a professional.