Navajo Supreme Court: Hold elections for president, election supervisors ASAP; planned primary cancelled

The Navajo Nation Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Navajo Election Administration to hold a presidential general election “as soon as possible” with Joe Shirley, Jr. and Russell Begaye as the candidates. It also ordered the Election Administration to hold elections for the Navajo Board of Election Supervisors whose seats were invalidated in an Oct. 31 decision, but stopped at holding them in contempt of court.

The orders came in the invalidations of two Navajo Nation Council resolutions – CD-80-14 and CD-81-14 – the first of which called for a primary election for presidential candidates in June and a subsequent special general election in August.

The second resolution that was invalidated in Friday’s decision pardoned and reinstated the Navajo Board of Election Supervisors who were found in contempt in the October decision because they refused to follow through with a November presidential election.

Both resolutions came on the heels of the postponed Navajo presidential election, which were postponed mostly due to the fact that there was major disagreements between different factions of the Navajo government and people over the issue of language fluency and candidate Chris Deschene’s ability to fluently speak the language.

Deschene and Shirley Jr. were first and second the original primary in August and were thus slated as the two November candidates.

Dale Tsosie and Hank Whitethorne, both of whom had been presidential candidates, had filed a motion to hold Deschene, the Navajo Board of Election Supervisors and the Navajo Election Administration in contempt of court in October.

The two men are the ones who originally started the petition against Deschene over fluency requirements.

Friday’s decision denied Tsosie and Whitethorne’s petition to hold council delegate and election officials in contempt, but they will not be allowed to return, hence the upcoming election for the board.

Prior to the Oct. 31 decision, the Navajo Nation Election Board Commissioner, Wallace Charley, told KOB that the board would go to jail before it removes Chris Deschene from the presidential ballot for the upcoming election.

“The Navajo are citizens of the United States; there is a constitution that gives the principle that people have a right to vote, and their votes cannot be denied,” Charley told KOB. “So based on that, the Navajo Board of Elections Supervisors will not back off on this principle. Whether that means going to jail – fine. We’ll go to jail and see what comes out of this.”

The Supreme Court also requested Friday the Speaker of the Council convene a special session for the council to talk about how to fund the election.