(MintPress) – The President of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has said that access to voting and voter registration is becoming a “civil emergency” for Native Americans. NCAI president Jefferson Keel told the Associated Press (AP) that state and federal governments should help with providing voter registration at Indian Health Service facilities. The United States largely stays out of voter preparation and registration for Native Americans, as the demographic is the only ethnicity that does not have its election data tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau, according to an agreement with the Census Bureau and tribal governments.
Earlier in the year, Keel called for the largest turnout of American Indian voters in history for November’s presidential election. Keel said in order to do that, however, Native American voters should be granted similar luxuries found in the National Voter Registration Act that was passed in 1993. The crux of the legislation called for certain government agencies, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), to provide voter registration forms to citizens while also providing its initial service.
Individuals who apply for driver’s license renewal or social services such as food stamps and disability services were also given voter registration forms. Keel argued that since no Native American facilities are included in the act, Indian Health Service facilities should have the same voter registration service because most Indian communities have them.
There are 562 federally recognized tribes in the U.S., yet they only make up slightly more than 1 percent of the population, according to PBS. Loren Birdrattler, National Native Vote coordinator for the NCAI, said election data is difficult to obtain because it is nearly impossible for data collectors to determine what the term “Native” constitutes when you’re dealing with percentages of a nationality.
“You’re dealing with three sets of data: you have census data, election data and tribal enrollment data, and of course they’re all so different that even when you layer them it’s hard to extrapolate real numbers,” Birdrattler said. “We have tracked, in a few states, precincts that are on reservations to get an idea, but that makes the assumption that a reservation is 100 percent native, which obviously it isn’t. So, it’s very difficult to get real numbers or real data.”
Nearly a century of suffrage
The current 2.5 million registered American Indian and Alaska Natives can trace their right to vote back to the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Signed by then-President Calvin Coolidge, the legislation presumably gave Native Americans suffrage rights, as the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees rights to anyone born in the U.S.
“BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and house of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property,” the bill read.
But states pushed back, delaying full implementation of the bill to 1948. A handful of states, such as Arizona and New Mexico, argued that the sovereign status of Native Americans on reservations prevented them from paying property taxes and put them in a guardianship status, thus not making them citizens.
Since the law’s passage, Native Americans still have some of the lowest voter turnouts of any ethnic group in the country. Data suggests that Native Americans participate in tribal elections twice as much as national elections.
Russ Lehman, professor at Evergreen State College, told PBS that turnout for national elections may be miniscule because many Native Americans believe the laws that solely govern them are made by tribal authority.
“They’re right, but only half right,” Lehman said. “A tremendous amount of what affects their lives on a day-to-day basis happens in the U.S. Congress. In fact, they have a right and responsibility to decide who makes those decisions in Congress, just like every non-Indian in this country.”
Keel argued that access to tribal election information is far easier than for national elections. He said many Native Americans feel that their vote holds no clout on the national stage.
“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,” Keel said in his address. “Today as a result, only two out of every five eligible American Indian and Alaska Native voters are not registered to vote, in 2008 over one million eligible Native voters were unregistered.”
Civil rights and the push for voter IDs
Since 2008, numerous attempts around the country have been made to push voter identification laws through legislation. The laws would require proof of identification in order to vote, often as a means to reduce alleged instances of voter fraud. But many skeptics argue that the measures unfairly target racial and ethnic minorities.
In 2004, American Indians in South Dakota were denied the right to vote because they were not carrying a photo ID. National Public Radio (NPR) reported that many Native Americans live in some of the country’s poorest counties and do not have the means to get a state identification. Situations like that are not uncommon, Raw Story reports that 1 in 4 African Americans in the U.S. do not have a photo ID. Estimates suggest that upwards of 5 million citizens could be affected by the laws.
At the end of May, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said advances in civil rights are at risk if photo ID laws continue to pass in various states. In 2004, four states, including South Dakota, required photo identification prior to voting. Today, 30 states require a photo or non-photo identification.
“Despite our nation’s long history of extending voting rights to non-property owners and to women, to people of color, to Native Americans, and to younger Americans, today a growing number of our fellow citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions and problems that nearly five decades ago so many fought to address,” Holder said in an address.
The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs declined to comment on Keel’s proposal.