Congress extended citizenship and voting rights to all Native Americans in 1924. However, states still retained the ability to define voter eligibility. In 1962, New Mexico was the last state to grant Native Americans the right to vote.

Currently, Native Americans make up more than 10 percent of the population in New Mexico, according the U.S. Census Bureau. That means they have the ability to impact election outcomes because of their concentration within certain areas in the state, according to Daniel C. McCool, a professor at the University of Utah who studies lawsuits involving Native Americans.

News21 traveled through New Mexico and spoke to tribal members about voting. Here are some of their responses:

Gloria Skeet

“When they talk about minorities, it seems to me it’s Hispanic and black or just black and white, and Native Americans are left out a lot,” said Gloria Skeet, who manages the chapter house at Bááháálí on the Navajo reservation south of Gallup.

Gloria Skeet outside the Bááháálí chapter house. (Mike Lakusiak/News21)

“We’re here. We’re real. And we’re here to stay,” Skeet said. “I think that a lot of the general population … think that Indians don’t exist, that we are all dead and we’re just history.”

Skeet sits on the front porch of the Bááháálí chapter house. She explained that she wasn’t as always connected to her culture and life on the reservation as she is now.

She, like many young Native Americans, left the reservation when she had the opportunity. She attended college in Minnesota.

“I grew up with no running water, no electricity, and I went to college. I was determined to finish college and, of course, my goal when I went to Minnesota was to get the hell out of here,” she said.

As the years passed, she grew homesick for the culture and community she left behind.

“I started to really miss hearing Navajo, and I missed a lot of the culture that I grew up with,” Skeet said. “When you grow up with Navajo values and the Navajo way of life, it never leaves you.”

Now she encourages young members of the chapter to become civically engaged and learn traditions through youth employment programs and a weaving program at the chapter house.

Jess Kirwin

Jess Kirwin, who has served as chapter president in the Navajo Nation’s McKinley County chapters, said older residents on the Navajo reservation often face hurdles casting their ballot in person. Members of the community go to great lengths to help, he said.

Jess Kirwin, who has been a chapter president on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico explained that tribal members ensure everyone can access polls. (Mike Lakusiak/News21)

“We have handicapped individuals, and I know our voting precinct workers there are very generous to go out to the automobile where grandma is sitting, make her vote in the vehicle and then they bring it back in and count her,” Kirwin said.

Amanda Henry

In the center of Gallup, Amanda Henry plays with her young daughter on the playground at Ford Canyon Park. She’s from the Naschitti Chapter in Tohatchi, New Mexico, and is both Navajo and Cherokee.

Henry filled out all the registration forms before the primary election, but she said that when she went to the local fire station to vote early, workers couldn’t find her in the system.

She plans to try and vote again in November. Henry said voting is about providing a better future for her daughter.

“I just I want equal rights for her,” she said. “I just want everything to be OK for her and for her not to be judged or to be looked down on.”

“Being minorities and Native American, it’s really hard to make something of yourself, and I don’t want things to be harder for her.”

Come back Aug. 20 to see the full News21 report on “Voting Wars.”

An old voting machine stands in the lobby of the Maricopa County Elections Warehouse. (Photo by Erin Vogel-Fox/News21)

PHOENIX — It was just a few short days before Halloween in October 2012. Petty Officer Second Class Scott Bourque was stationed in Japan and had just received his mail-in absentee ballot for the presidential election. He knew it would be nearly impossible to fill out his ballot and mall it back in time for it to be counted by Arizona Election Officials on Nov. 6.

“I think it was kind of disheartening to get it late,” Bourque said. “It just felt like the state didn’t care about us … they didn’t want us to vote, not that they were trying to suppress us, just that we were an afterthought.”

Today, Bourque could have voted on time with Arizona’s electronic ballot mailing system.

Beginning in 2004, overseas Arizona voters could request that ballots be sent to them electronically, but they still had to return ballots by mail or fax. That changed in 2014, when Arizona allowed military and overseas voters to return their ballot via the Internet or by fax up to 7 p.m. on Election Day.

The voter’s county sends a notification through email to the military or overseas voter that his or her ballot is ready. The voter signs into the secure system electronically, fills out the ballot, and scans it back into the system to be returned electronically to county election officials. The voter’s county recorder’s office then receives and processes the ballot.

Maricopa and Pima counties have the most military and other Arizona citizens living abroad, including about 10,400 registered voters in 2012, according to the Election Assistance Commission. Helen Purcell, Maricopa County Recorder said helping to advance technology for military voters and overseas citizens was personal because her own son had been unable to return his ballot in time by mail.

“My son was stationed in Iraq in Desert Storm,” Purcell said. “I could get a ballot to him. I couldn’t get it back in time to count it. I didn’t want that to ever happen again, to anybody. Because it seems to me that those people should be more the ones allowed to vote than anybody else.”

Purcell a member of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission Technical Guidelines Development Committee, which works to improve and modernize voting trends for the future, said the state’s electronic system even allows military voters to register electronically on Election Day. The service member must complete all of the forms online that day and fill out the ballot by 7 p.m. when the polls close.

“We have, I think, set up a connection with the military that most of them understand the system we have now,” Purcell said. “They have been dealing with it for several elections now. So, I think that has become much easier.”

Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez said the county has a special digital program in place to assist overseas voters.

“We get a form in … and even those that mark the ballot for mail, we email them and ask them if they want us to send out their ballots electronically,” Rodriguez said. For voters who are registering for the first time, Rodriguez and her staff converse with the overseas voter several times through email. Then they send both the voter registration material and ballot to the voter simultaneously.

Arizona is home to several military bases, where U.S. Military voting assistance officers help service men and women when they move or deploy and need to ensure they receive a ballot. Paperwork for the voting process needs to be completed and updated frequently as service members passing through the bases for training may make more than one move during a short time period and may not have a future address in place.

“Usually there is a lot we can do even if they have missed the deadline. There are processes in place that we can do a [Federal] Write-in Absentee Ballot and help them at least have another shot at getting their vote counted,” said Capt. Kate Murphy, installation voting officer and pharmacist at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.

Murphy said the bases work with the Federal Voting Assistance Program to set up two annual events to help educate voters. The first event in late June and early July is Armed Forces Voter Week, geared to remind military voters and their families about registration and the upcoming election. The second is Absentee Voters Week in September, aimed at reminding service members to vote if they have received their ballots or to fill out a Federal Write-in Absentee ballot if the ballot they sent for hasn’t arrived.

“People just feel like their vote just isn’t going to count. People feel like they are kind of disillusioned in the entire system and so they just don’t want to vote,” Murphy said. “Which kind of puts them in that Catch-22. Well you know, if you don’t vote, definitely your voice isn’t going to be heard. But they feel like even if they do vote, their voice doesn’t matter.”

First Lt. Matt Warner of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence at Fort Huachuca near Sierra Vista, said that “during our voting kick off week here at Ft. Huachuca, I had the opportunity to set up a booth at one of the dining facilities for our soldiers here. We set up posters, billboards. We try to tell them that their vote is going to count. The process isn’t too burdensome. Their vote will count, their voice matters.”

Wes Copper, civilian and installation voting assistance officer for Fort Huachuca, said the Army now requires soldiers to speak to a voting assistance officer when they arrive at every new base.

“When they come in, they are in-processing and it is mandated that we discuss voting,” Copper said, “we will ask them if they are registered to vote. We’ll ask them about absentee and if they’re not registered, we’ll register them if they want to.”

Erin Vogel-Fox is a Hearst fellow. Follow her on Twitter @ErinVogelFox.