SAN JUAN COUNTY, Utah _ At the end of a labyrinth of red dirt roads and surrounded by the rusty cliffs of nearby mesas, Marthleen and Shuan Stephenson live on an isolated desert homestead on the sprawling Navajo Nation.
Until last month, you couldn't find their home using a traditional address. Instead, the directions went like this: "Turn off U.S. Highway 191 between mile markers 1 and 2. It's a blue house with a tan roof."
The couple felt like they were living in the dark, separated from modern times.
"Out there, it's city streets, apartments and house numbers," he said.
"But we don't have anything out here," she added.
Like the Stephensons', most homes on the Navajo Nation in southeastern Utah lack street addresses. That means packages must be shipped to businesses or relatives who live in town, many miles away. Most on the reservation get their regular mail at post office boxes, which are sometimes located in Arizona. Emergency responders, given vague home locations, are often delayed.
But it is the impact on voting that has many indigenous rights advocates deeply concerned.
"In Indian Country, you don't have a 123 Elm Street address," said James Tucker, a pro bono voting rights counsel for the Native American Rights Fund.
"It limits your gateway to even be able to register to vote, to putting your foot through the door to participate from the get-go."
County by county, election administrators must know exactly where voters live to assign accurate precincts, which then determine which ballot a voter receives, which offices she votes for and at which polling location she casts a ballot. In Utah and many other largely rural states, residents can register to vote by describing their approximate location on registration forms, or even draw a rudimentary map, which is allowed by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
But in states with strict voter identification laws, officials typically require a traditional address. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court just weeks before the midterm elections declined to block a North Dakota law requiring IDs with street addresses. P.O. boxes would not suffice, the court ruled, sending local tribes and activists into a frenzy trying to meet the new standard.
Now voting rights advocates are searching for ways to assign addresses to rural, indigenous communities ahead of the 2020 general election, knowing that it may be only a matter of time before county and state governments crack down on non-traditional addresses on reservations.
For Navajo residents of southeastern Utah, a new addressing system developed with the assistance of Google might help.
