He doesn't need a gimmick.
Talker will be counted in the 2004 election Tuesday, just as he was in his first presidential vote four years ago, because, well, what else could he do? His parents always stressed education and citizen participation. Expectations run high in his family.
Talker is 24, a member of the Navajo Nation and the son of two school teachers who work on the Arizona side of the reservation. He drives 60 miles each day from his home, crossing the San Juan River into Bluff, population 330, and nestled among the red rock on U.S. Highway 191. Julius works the desk at the Desert Rose Inn.
He is taking some time off from pre-dental studies at the University of Virginia. Talker will vote for President Bush next week, just as he did in 2000.
"I like what Bush stands for," he says. "Kerry flip-flops too much. Plus, I don't like Kerry's wife."
Mirroring the rest of the nation, Utah's rugged southeastern corner has seen record numbers of voter registration this fall.
"There's a lot at stake this year," says Grand County Deputy Clerk Wendy Mayberry, who was sorting through stacks of registration forms and absentee ballots at her desk in Moab on Tuesday.
Of the approximately 10,000 residents in Grand County, 7,286 were registered to vote at the legal close of the state's registration period at 8 p.m. Monday.
Citizen activists have been busy in Moab. Miss Grand County, Danielle Hodson, orchestrated a registration effort at Grand High School. Sadie Warner, a reporter for the Moab Times-Independent newspaper, organized a homespun rock the vote day outside a local coffee bar with music and volunteers handing out registration forms.
Even in San Juan County - the state's largest county in area but with only 14,000 residents, one of the least populated - registration numbers are historically high. In 2000, there were 8,500 registered voters. This year there are 9,125.
Most stunning is the increase in American Indian registration, says Norman Johnson, San Juan County clerk and auditor. More than half of San Juan County is ethnic minority, mostly Navajo. For its size, it ranks among the top six poorest counties in per-capita income in the United States. And there is an abysmal history of voter outreach on the reservation; the county was only recently released from a dozen years of U.S. Justice Department oversight of its voter education and registration system among the Navajo.
"That happened before my watch," Johnson quickly points out, "but we have felt a great sense of responsibility to get out the native vote. No question, this population has been disenfranchised. My gut tells me our efforts to improve are paying off."
The most stunning increase came in the reservation town of Oljato, accessible only by poorly paved reservation roads. There, registration numbers jumped from 853 to 1,005 since 2000. "We have seen spotty increases all over, but that one was significant," says Johnson.
Registration is one thing; turnout is another. Ronald Walker, who moved to the Navajo Reservation four years ago from northern California and practices medicine at the Monument Valley Health Center, says he may be too busy to vote. Walker was at the county clerk's office in Monticello on Tuesday, picking up passport forms for a trip to Indonesia next month. Until then, he is struggling to round up enough flu vaccine for the scores of elderly Navajos he serves.
"The health department sent us only 50 vaccines and we have well over a hundred older patients who are compromised in some way - diabetic, asthmatic, cardiovascular disease. I'm trying to get more vaccine from Tuba City over in Arizona. Who has time to vote?"
hmullen@sltrib.com
