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The Pascua Yaqui Tribe's top casino executive encouraged tribal members to vote early last week by offering free meals at Casino del Sol worth up to $20 per vote.

Like laws governing Arizona and federal elections, the tribe's code makes it unlawful to give anything of value to someone as an incentive to vote or to refrain from voting.

CEO Wendell Long issued a memo on the eve of early voting for the Tribal Council that urged tribal gaming enterprise employees to clear it with supervisors and then "leave their work post to cast their vote."

"As a small token of my appreciation for your fulfilling your Tribal obligation, all Tribal Members who vote in the election will be entitled to a free lunch on the day that they vote," Long wrote. "Just show your "I Voted" sticker to receive your free lunch up to twenty dollars."

The Tucson-based tribe, which has 15,000 members, conducted early voting May 20-21 at polling places on the reservation southwest of Tucson and in the Yaqui town of Guadalupe, near Phoenix.

The general election will be Monday, with 57 candidates, including the tribal chairman and nine other incumbents, seeking 11 council seats, election officials said.

Long said he was unfamiliar with the tribal code and was just "trying to do a good deed" by encouraging all tribal members in any Yaqui community to vote for the candidate of their choice. He said low voter turnout is a problem for tribes throughout the country.

Opponents of the current tribal administration complained that offering such incentives benefits candidates who have a local base of support in the far-flung tribe. They also said any incentive raises the specter of vote-buying.

"He doesn't have to say, 'Hey, vote for these people,' but everyone understands who his bosses are," said Herminia Frias, who last year was ousted as tribal chairwoman by other council members.

"When you have a non-Yaqui CEO who is very friendly with the majority of the Tribal Council and is influencing voters by giving them $20 meals, that raises a red flag," Frias said.

Asked about the free meals, tribal Chairman Peter Yucupicio on Friday said only: "I have no comment. I had nothing to do with that."

Mary Jane Buenamea, chairwoman of the tribe's elections board, also distanced her office from the incentives. "We had nothing to do with it," she said. She would not say whether the board will investigate the matter.

Buenamea said 755 people cast early ballots, but she would not say how many cast them in Casino del Sol, where the tribe had a polling place. The gaming division employs about 1,400 people, though it was not known how many are eligible to vote.

Long said he did not know how many received free meals or what it cost the tribe's Gaming Enterprise Division.

Catalina Alvarez of Guadalupe, secretary of the Tribal Council, estimated that at $20 a vote, the division gave away nearly $13,000 in meals.

She said only about 125 people voted in Guadalupe, so more than 600 voted at the casino or other reservation polling places. She said casino workers recalled that the surge in diners forced some voters, as well as regular casino patrons, to wait an hour to eat.

Long, a member of the Choctaw Tribe of Oklahoma, became chief executive officer of the Yaqui Casino del Sol, Casino of the Sun and AVA Amphitheater in 2006 after a long gaming career with tribes in Connecticutt and with the Trump organization in Atlantic City.

"I can't imagine how it could possibly influence the election," he said of the incentives. "No candidate was ever mentioned. Anything I can do to bring out the vote is, I think, important for the tribe."

But Alvarez said Long's job "is to run the casino, not to worry about our politics or whether our tribal members go out and vote."

Brad Nelson, director of elections for Pima County, which will assist the tribe in tabulating votes, said the county used a building in a casino complex for a polling place once, but only because it could not find a more suitable place. That drew complaints that compulsive gamblers should not have to enter a casino to vote.

In his May 18 memo, Long said the gaming division planned to offer the same incentive in November's presidential election. On Friday, he said he had also planned to offer the $20 meals to any tribal members who vote Monday.

But he said he scratched those plans because on Thursday he contacted the tribe's office of attorney general and was advised the practice violates the tribal code. Any violation was inadvertent, Long said.

At a recent forum, candidate Abel Flores recalled the early voting as a sad time for the tribe.

"We've never been conquered by any government," he said, "but on the twentieth and twenty-first we were conquered by twenty bucks."

Long said he was unaware of any tribal investigation into the matter.