Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico and a dozen other Democratic senators have introduced the Native American Voting Rights Act of 2018 designed to give American Indians the same access to the ballot box as non-Indian voters. This is something Indians are already supposed to have. But there continue to be forces that prefer to do what they can to suppress the Indian vote in areas where those votes can make a difference.
The provisions of the act include establishing a Native American Voting Rights Task Force, restoring the “preclearance” of any changes in voting laws that affect Indians (something that was removed when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 five years ago), providing equal access to voter registration and polls, giving equal status to tribal IDs for voting purposes, mandating that tribes can ask federal observers to monitor elections, and requiring adequate language assistance.
Until the Snyder Act was signed in 1924, most American Indians didn’t have the right to vote. A few thousand had gotten that right as a consequence of serving in the military during World War I. Before that some Indians who had proved to authorities that they had given up their Indianness and tribal connections also were enfranchised. The Snyder Act—formally the Indian Citizenship Act—was designed to extend voting rights to the whole Native population, the last population group in the country to see that right legally guaranteed.
But in the 94 years since the act passed, state and local authorities in jurisdictions with large numbers of Indians have engaged in all kinds of manipulations to keep them from voting. Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming all found means to block or dilute the Indian vote.
For instance, having ignored the 1924 act, South Dakota did not repeal until 1951 its 1903 law requiring a culture test for Indians to prove they had abandoned their identity as Indians, their culture, their language, and their homeland in order to vote or hold office. As late as 1975, authorities prohibited Indians from voting in elections in Todd, Shannon, and Washabaugh counties, whose residents were overwhelmingly Indian. The state also prohibited residents of these counties from holding county office until as recently as 1980. And South Dakota continued suppressing Indian voting rights decades later.
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Although it's not widely known, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 included American Indians in its mandate. Because of the act, Indians on the Ute reservations of southwestern Colorado finally obtained guaranteed voting rights for local elections in 1970. While the suppression of the Native vote has usually been more subtle than the Jim Crow laws that kept almost all African Americans in several states from casting votes until the 1960s, it has definitely had a negative impact on Indians. Native activists or their allies have repeatedly taken officials to court over this suppression and usually won, as in this 2013 case.
But defeating discriminatory laws and actions requires going to court in the first place. That can be an expensive and difficult task for many tribes or individual Indians. The Indian vote matters. In all but seven states, Indians constitute fewer than 5 percent of the eligible voters. In only two states—Alaska and New Mexico—do they account for more than 10 percent of the total population. But even in some cases where they count for no more than 1 or 2 percent of the population, Indian voters have been critical to the success of candidates for public office, and Democrats have usually been the beneficiaries. In North Dakota, challenger Heidi Heitkamp squeaked by thanks to the Indian vote to win a Senate seat in 2012. In 2000, the mobilization of the Native vote in Washington state took out the Indian-hating Republican Sen. Slade Gorton in a squeaker that Democrat Maria Cantwell won.
In a statement in support of his bill, Udall said:
“For too long, Native Americans have been blocked from exercising their constitutional right to make their voices heard in their democracy,” Udall said. “In 1948—70 years ago—my grandfather, Levi Udall, served as Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court where he authored the opinion extending the right to vote to Native Americans then living on-reservation. My grandfather wrote, ‘To deny the right to vote… is to do violence to the principles of freedom and equality.’ I wholeheartedly agree. But today, 70 years later, state and local jurisdictions continue to erect insidious new barriers to the ballot box for Native Americans, from the elimination of polling and registration locations to the passage of voter ID laws intentionally designed to prevent Native Americans from voting. These undemocratic barriers have blocked too many Native voters across New Mexico and Indian Country from exercising their franchise. In light of highly destructive recent court decisions like Shelby County v. Holder, it is more important than ever that we pass legislation to ensure that the voices of Native communities across Indian Country are heard at the ballot box.”
The 1948 ruling that Udall references was one of two that year thanks to the anger of Miguel Trujillo, a member of the Pueblo of Isleta in New Mexico and a veteran of the Marine Corps during World War II, and Frank Harrison, another Marine veteran and member of the Yavapai tribe in Arizona. Both had gone to register to vote in their respective counties and were told that because they were Indians living on tribal land they weren't allowed to vote.
But suppressing the Indian vote isn’t just historical. Among the ways the Indian vote continues to be reduced in more recent times is by maintaining at-large districts for various offices, such as water boards and county commissions. In 2010, a federal judge ruled in a decision upheld by the 10th Circuit Court that Fremont County, Wyoming, had to stop using its at-large system because it diluted the strength of the vote of the Northern Arapahoe and Eastern Shoshone Indians on the the Wind River Indian Reservation.
And just last December in San Juan County, Utah, a federal judge redrew district lines that had been gerrymandered to keep Indians out of public office for the past 30 years. For the Navajo, especially in the southern half of the county, “the lack of political power has meant no voting precincts, no new high schools or roads, no language assistance, no running water and rare jury selection during those decades,” reports Matt Vasilogambros. Now the Navajo who make up a slight majority of the county’s population are favored for two of the three county commission seats and three of the five school board seats.
Anyone who doubts that the Udall legislation is badly needed can see why by listening to Phil Lyman, a Republican county commissioner now seeking a seat in the Utah House of Representatives. He has said the Navajos “lost the war” and should have no role in local land management. He’s not the only politician with that point of view.
