Navajo Council special session convenes; Disenfranchised voters rally pack chambers

Greetings Relatives/Frens/Humans, I’m here at the Navajo Nation Council chambers in Window Rock, Ariz., where the Council has called a special session, which was scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. It is now 11:24 a.m.

The gallery of the Council chamber is already filled with spectators. A majority of the people, who are all ages, are members of an organization involving “disenfranchised voters,” who are the voters that voted for disqualified tribal presidential candidate Chris Deschene during the tribal primary election in August 2014. They held a rally outside the chambers this morning under a blue sky and temperatures that dipped into the 30s. It was also windy, which added to the chill.

And once they entered the chamber and sat down, some of them started lobbying the few Council delegates, who were waiting in the chamber for the special Council session to convene, to support Council Delegate Leonard Tsosie’s “Emergency” legislation 0341-14 that benefits the “disenfranchised voters” by nullifying the 2014 Primary Election so a “Special Run-Off Election and a Special General Election for the Office of the President” can be held.

Most of the spectators also thanked Tsosie for speaking up for them and for sponsoring 0341-14, which the last item on the Council’s PROPOSED AGENDA of 19 pieces of legislation.

The Council has convened at 11:36 a.m.

Tsosie is now speaking. He said that as he drove to the Council chambers he saw people walking to the chambers in the cold because that is how much they care about their votes.

He said yesterday, Dec. 22, that he was sponsoring 0341-14 because the disenfranchised voters had said that they had voted for their presidential candidate and so they would not vote in the special presidential election between former Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. and Navajo Nation Council Delegate Russell Begaye, which would make the winner of the special presidential election an “illegitimate president.”

According to the 2014 Primary Election results from the Navajo Election Administration, 48,640 voters participated or 43.96 percent of the total 110,645 registered voters. 9,831 voters voted for Deschene.

For the November 2014 General Election, the Election Administration reported that 63,168 voters participated or 50.15 percent of the total registered voters of 125,954.

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