The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs held a roundtable Tuesday morning on barriers to Native American voting.

The Navajo Nation spans across Utah, Arizona and New Mexico totaling 27,000 square miles. Jackson Brossy, executive director of the Navajo Nation office in D.C., testified a major challenge in voting is the rural nature of the Navajo people.

“In 2016, the Apache County in Arizona only had two early voting locations for Navajo people, so that required our people to drive 95 miles each way to go vote,” said Brossy.

Language and discrimination are two other barriers that inhibit Navajo access to voting. Brossy said they have filed and won lawsuits this past year that prove the occurrence of systematic discrimination.