Apache County will swap to a new voting model after years of concern over rejected ballots

After years of lobbying by tribal officials, Apache County will move to a new voting model for the upcoming midterm election, a shift expected to reduce the number of tribal voters’ ballots rejected because they were cast in the wrong precinct.

The county, located in the remote, northeastern corner of Arizona, oversees voting in large swaths of the Navajo Nation and the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.

For years, it has used a precinct-based model in which voters are assigned polling places based on the voting district, or precinct, in which they reside. But tribal voters often don’t have standard street addresses, and county, precinct, and reservation lines often crisscross. That means a voters’ assigned polling place may not be the closest or most intuitive location, and the vast distances and lack of transportation on tribal land mean it often isn’t easy to redirect voters to the correct site.

The system has long led to proportionally more rejected ballots in Apache County. Nearly 1,300 provisional ballots were rejected there in 2024, or about 3.9% of all ballots cast, according to data tracked by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Of those, about 34% were rejected for being cast in the wrong precinct.



https://www.votebeat.org/arizona/2026/04/08/apache-county-navajo-nation-vote-centers-ballot-rejections/