Erica Ayisi:
Tell me about the work that you do with the Wisconsin Native Vote.

Anne Egan-Waukau
We are a 501c3 nonprofit, so we are nonpartisan, so we make sure that when we go out that we don't talk political candidates. Our goal is to get our Native people to the polls. So we work on combating historic voter disenfranchisement. Also, we work on contemporary barriers that people may face, educating our voters, and registering people to vote, and improve policies that impact our Native community access to the polls. The key is that we do a lot of one-on-one.

Erica Ayisi:
Where are you seeing where people are really coming out to vote in, whether it's local elections or on the federal level?

Anne Egan-Waukau
On the Red Cliff Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, the voter turnout was increased by 130%, and we're working hard. My reservation — I was on the reservation working on increasing voter turnout during that 2019 to 2023 span — and we increased voter turnout by 75% on the Menominee reservation. We are going out now and going to the community and talking to the youth. I think that's something that we're going to have to make sure we keep working on, because as they become 18, some aren't aware how to vote yet, so I've had people say, "What do I do? How do I register?" So we help them register. But we go into the tribal schools — I know they've done that. They've gone into the high schools near the reservations. I've gone into MPS and talked to several groups about the importance of voting and registering, and we had quite a bit of success with that. So I think it's not only the Native people who need to educate our kids, but all people, because our children aren't all on the reservation either — some are in the urban Milwaukee areas.

Erica Ayisi:
Between now and then, what are you and your organization going to be doing to get out the vote?

Anne Egan-Waukau
What we're doing is we are actually going to be doing a lot of visits throughout our communities, doing a lot of one-on-ones, which is the best way to get our people to talk to us and understand the importance of voting if they don't know it.