7:15 PM UPDATE: At 7 pm, The Arizona Superior Court granted a temporary restraining order with respect to those communities noted within the complaint including:
- Chinle
- Dennehotso
- Wheatfields
- Fort Defiance
- St. Michaels
- Cottonwood
- Rock Point
- Lupton
- Lukachukai
APACHE COUNTY, Ariz. — Multiple polling places on the Navajo Nation faced technical issues during the 2024 Election Day, specifically in the morning. These issues caused long lines.
At 10 am, election officials in Apache County were working to fix problems they were having with their ballot on-demand printers. By 3 pm, most locations were up and running, but there was reportedly still some residual issues.
The Navajo Nation Department of Justice office received reports that the problems were causing long lines, and that voters were leaving because they didn't want to wait.
Around 6 pm on Nov. 5, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren announced that the Navajo Nation had filed a complaint in the Superior Court of the State of Arizona against Apache County, seeking an emergency extension of polling hours by two hours due to technical difficulties impacting voting on the Navajo Reservation.
“Navajo people represent a powerful voting base and we’ve demonstrated in the past that we can change the outcome of state and federal elections,” Nygren said. “Today’s issues in Apache County are troubling, but our Navajo voters should not be discouraged. The leaders of Apache County have reached out to me and we are working to ensure that our Navajo voters are being accommodated due to the technical failures.”
As of 6:45 pm, the lawsuit was still pending.
In an earlier Facebook post, Nygren told voters to call the Native Vote Hotline — 1-888-777-3831 — if they were experiencing problems. It wasn’t immediately clear how many voters were affected. The county has 44 precincts and around 54,000 registered voters.
