These Significant Barriers are Preventing Native Americans From Voting in 2020
Why is no one talking about this?
This summer, August 19 and 20, 2019, the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum — the first of its kind — brought democratic candidates together to discuss the issues most pertinent to America’s Indigenous communities.
Pyramid Lake Paiute tribal member Janet Davis, in a question to Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), asked how the presidential hopeful plans to increase voter access among Native populations. She recalled that in 2016, her tribe was forced to litigate against voter suppression in the state of Nevada but ultimately increased voter turnout by setting up early polling stations in their precinct.
The senator responded to Davis by calling for a need to change the American elective process, saying, “The answer is to have a president and an attorney general who’s going to do everything that we can to make sure every eligible voter in this country is able to vote.”
In America, though, the democratic process is not always so equitable. As the 2020 general election looms on the horizon, Native Americans may continue to encounter difficulties in accessing their right to vote.
Disenfranchised Native American communities have long been neglected and undermined throughout US voting history. The federal government did not even recognize Indigenous people as citizens until 1924, and their right to vote was not fully secured in every state until 1962. By comparison, Black men were granted suffrage with the ratification of the Fifthteenth Amendment in 1870 shortly after the abolition of slavery, and women gained the vote in 1920 with the Nineteenth Amendment.
Native people today still face challenges when it comes to fair access to the ballot box. Whether it’s living distance from the polls, a lack of translation into Native languages on voter information, or frequent exclusion from issues, the original people of this continent still face substantial barriers to voting on matters that impact their homelands. These long-ingrained institutional obstacles significantly hinder a robust Native voice in the American election process.
Voter turnout among Native Americans is between five and 14 percent lower than other marginalized communities. As of 2012, one million eligible Native American voters—almost 40 percent of Indigenous Americans over the age of 18—were not registered to vote.
An ID law in North Dakota during the 2018 midterm election, House Bill 1369 catapulted Native voter suppression into mainstream headlines. The law requires all voting persons in North Dakota to have an ID card with the person’s legal name, date of birth, and physical address. But in the state’s Native reservations, many residents don’t have or need a physical address, instead relying on post office boxes to receive mail.
On the eve of the 2018 midterm election, the Supreme Court denied an emergency application from the Native American Rights Foundation (NARF) to stop North Dakota from implementing the controversial bill. The law’s impact on Native communities in North Dakota was immediate and incommensurate. In its lawsuit, NARF stated that over 20 percent of Native Americans in the state did not have an acceptable ID to vote under the law, compared to just 12 percent of non-Natives. Nearly half of eligible Native voters also lacked the documents needed to acquire an ID, and would have to drive twice as far as a non-Native to get one printed.
The requirement, according to the state, was created in order to deter voter fraud, despite no instances of past attempts of voter fraud in the state’s history.
In August of this year, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the voting law, vacating a preliminary injunction against the measure. The three-judge panel found that the requirements for physical addresses does not place an undue burden on most of the state’s population and could only negatively impact “a relatively small percentage of eligible voters.”
Never mind that this “small percentage” of voters constitute one of the most marginalized and underrepresented populations in the country.
Yet, given the law’s disproportionate impact on Native American communities, activists and organizations alike rallied to bolster turnout for midterms. Lakota matriarch and former Standing Rock Sioux Tribe councilmember Phyllis Young helped lead the effort to mobilize Standing Rock voters, helping to canvass and transport people to tribal offices to receive an assigned address on a newly printed ID.
“We have gone to the frontline to defend our homeland,” Young said in a video by the Lakota People’s Law Project. “And we are at the frontline to defend our right to vote.”
Despite the new legislation, organizers’ effort turned out a historic number of Native American voters in North Dakota—many of whom had never voted before.
Looking forward to the coming election, North Dakota’s voter ID law could prove to be a significant factor on voter turnout on tribal lands as well as political majority. Because Native Americans predominantly vote democratic, there are many people who conjecture the move to change North Dakota law was politically motivated by the state’s GOP.
Derrick Watson, a 38 year old Diné man from the Navajo Nation, notes that as an urban Native, he has not encountered noticeable barriers to voting. Still, he believes that voter suppression of Native Americans is “alive and well.”
Watson’s family, who live on ancestral territories in the southwest, tend to vote blue and worry that the tribal identification law in North Dakota could set a precedent for changes to voting in their lands. Many reservations in the region are similar to the Standing Rock reservation in that physical addresses are not required and could present future challenges to accessing the ballot box. “What we’re seeing in North Dakota is definitely a test,” says Watson. “And if those laws stand, I could see that happening all over the country. Especially on my Navajo Nation homelands.”
In the ramp up to the 2020 general election, it’s crucial to note that Native Americans are already advocating for their own self-determination and inclusion. A historically underrepresented population in election cycle debates and discussion, candidates seem to be turning attention to Native voices more than ever.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) recently unveiled a comprehensive plan to fulfill American obligations and provide resources to Indian Country; she also plans on introducing a Senate bill, mirroring Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM)’s congressional legislation, to rescind the Medals of Honor awarded to the US soldiers involved in the Wounded Knee Massacre. Sen. Sanders’ Green New Deal specifically notes the importance of including Indigenous voices in climate justice, and calls for the revocation of permits for the Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipelines. Former democratic candidate Jay Inslee has signed bills as governor of Washington about Native American voting rights and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Other presidential hopefuls, including Kamala Harris and Julian Castro, have recently received praise for their inclusion of Native issues in their platforms.
But in a nation where the first inhabitants face the most severe barriers to the democratic process, will this be enough?
