On Native American reservations, residents face hurdles to voting

When Jennifer Juan went to cast her ballot in Arizona's state primary in July, she spent an hour rifling through documents to convince poll workers she should be allowed to vote. It's a common problem for many Native American voters like Juan.

A registered voter on the Tohono O'odham Nation reservation, Juan, like many residents of tribal land, lacks a physical address. Instead, voting records provide a rough description of how to find her home -- it's near milepost 7 on Indian Route 19 and hers was the 53rd home built in Cold Fields Village.

But that meant she could not satisfy a requirement to produce documents with that address as some of her other forms of identification listed a P.O. box, which residents on reservations often use to receive mail.

"It was really hard to vote this past primary," said Juan, 41, who had to cast a provisional ballot, which records a vote when there are questions about a person's eligibility.

Tohono O'odham Nation reservation, which has about 10,000 residents according to census data, sprawls across a Connecticut-sized area of the Sonoran Desert with its iconic saguaro cactus and mesquite trees. Most streets don't have names and houses don't have numbers. Few residents receive postal delivery to their homes and Amazon packages are delivered to the Shell gas station.