On Wednesday, Oct. 10, Indian activists in Montana filled suit in federal court against state and county officials over the lack of election access on three Montana reservations, saying that their inability to vote early or register late creates an unconstitutional denial of equal voting access.
According to the 2010 Census, almost 50,000 voting age American Indians in Montana - 6.5 percent of the state’s voting age population, meaning that the Senate race - between the Democratic incumbent Jon Tester and Republican challenger, Denny Rehberg - could determine control of the Senate and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
The plaintiffs want a federal judge to issue an emergency order requiring the state and counties to open satellite election offices on the Crow, Northern Cheyenne, and Fort Belknap reservations. Currently, some eligible American Indian voters have to drive up to 113 miles round trip to reach county offices - the only places that allow in-person absentee voting and late registration. “Plaintiffs and Indians in general prefer to see their ballot arrive to its final destination and do not trust that their vote will get counted if sent through the mail,” states the lawsuit.
The state attorney general’s office maintains that opening such satellite offices is discretionary and the state can’t force the counties to do it.
The suit draws attention to a larger problem: Over 1 million eligible American Indians and Alaska Natives were not registered to vote in the 2008 elections - 34 percent of the total Native population over 18, according to the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Studies analyzing Census data indicate that even among registered American Indians, the turnout rate is 5 to 14 percentage points lower than that of other racial and ethnic groups.
NCAI and numerous grassroots organizers hosted a number of registration drives and rallies throughout Indian Country launching “Native Vote Action Week” from September 24 through the 28. The goal was to fill the 1 million voter registration gap by raising awareness about the “importance of civic engagement” and increasing Native voter participation in “one of the largest weeks of voter engagement, education, and non-partisan action” since Native voters secured ballot box rights with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“Over the last century since securing our rightful place at the ballot box, Native people have remained one of the most disenfranchised groups of voters in the United States,” notes NCAI President Jefferson Keel. “Now is a crucial time for Indian Country to work together to get Native Voters registered and ready to go to make our voice heard on November 6as we participate in national and state elections.”
In a speech delivered at NCAI’s mid-year Conference in June, Keel painted a picture of voter participation in Indian Country as a “civic emergency,” and called for Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities to be added to the list of federal and state government sites to serve as voter registration sites. Keel cited a June 2012 report released by Demos, a non-partisan public policy research organization, outlining Native voter disenfranchisement. That report, “Ensuring Access to the Ballot for American Indians & Alaska Natives: New Solutions to Strengthen American Democracy,” cites "manipulation, discrimination, and forcible exclusion from the voting process" as some of the reasons American Indians have the lowest voter participation of any ethnic group in the United States. The report pointed to IHS facilities as logical sites for voter registration, noting that, “Appropriate IHS facilities should be designated as official voter registration agencies along the same lines as state based public assistance agencies are now designated under the National Voter Registration Act.”
2012 Native Vote
Comments concerning the “47 percent” don’t play well in Indian Country: According to the 2010 Census, 5.2 million people in the United States self-identified as American Indian and Alaska Native and over a quarter, or 28.4 percent, live under the poverty line. Unemployment is also traditionally stuck in the double digits, from 20 percent to 70 percent. Because of this, American Indians are heavily federally dependent; most reservations have few private jobs, and the federal government funds education and health agencies.
Although Native American voters are unlikely to have much impact on the presidential race this year, there are closely contested Senate races in Montana and other Western states including North Dakota, Arizona, and New Mexico. It is these states that have a high enough tribal population to impact the make-up of the Senate, an important focus for tribes since it is the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that controls congressional tribal policy and funding.