The Rural Utah Project

“55 years ago today, (August 6, 1965) the Voting Rights Act was signed into law. Today, let's honor John Lewis' legacy and recommit to making sure every eligible voter can access the ballot box.” --The Honorable Sharice Davids (In 2018 Ms. Davids, along with Deb Haaland, were the first Native American women elected to Congress ever.)

The Rural Utah Project caught the attention of the Kelly Ann Brown Foundation with the great work they were doing to engage voters in Utah. As their executive director TJ Ellerbeck told us,  "The Rural Utah Project (RUP) was founded in 2017 with a goal of long-term organizing in often-ignored parts of rural Utah and increased representation for disenfranchised groups in rural Utah.”

RUP’s first major effort was a nonpartisan voter registration campaign in San Juan County — a Native American-majority county — in Utah. It is home to Bears Ears National Monument and the Utah portion of the Navajo Nation. Their successes included registering over 1600 indigenous voters and paving the way for the election of Willie Grayeyes and Kenneth Maryboy, who now serve on the first ever majority-Navajo San Juan County commission.

In 2018 RUP worked with Google employees to map out physical addresses, an issue that had in the past prevented many Indigenous people from voting. The county didn’t assign physical addresses to many Indigenous homes, and in turn the residents were disenfranchised because they had no proof of where they lived. The solution came from new technology from Google Maps: Google Plus Codes use a grid based system to find homes using satellite images and longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates.

RUP installed address signs that were paid for by Google and registered voters simultaneously. Commenting on these efforts Ellerbeck stated: “I feel like our work is a step forward, but it’s not like plus codes just magically fix everything. There are centuries of disenfranchisement and racism, and you can’t just fix that immediately.”

A KABF board member reached out to Ellerbeck and asked if he thought he could expand their program to the Navajo Nation that extends through Arizona. Ellerbeck responded positively, “On the Navajo Nation, state lines are nearly meaningless, so expanding our existing program into Arizona is simply a matter of having resources to hire additional staff. RUP has already built meaningful relationships with elected officials, Navajo Nation leaders, and other key individuals in Arizona, and these relationships will help us to easily expand our program.”

Ellerbeck stated that their voter registration and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) work done in the past by RUP, could be replicated in Arizona with the help of additional funds to hire Arizona staff. KABF worked with other donors who agreed to help wholeheartedly.

KABF is thrilled to partner with RUP and other donors to help continue their great success.

To learn more about the Rural Utah Project, visit their website: https://www.ruralutahproject.org/