by Christine Trudeau

North Dakota’s Native youth played a significant role in parts of the state to help get out the Native vote last November. Youth-led groups like the Turtle Mountain Youth Council reached out through numerous Facebook Live events and other forms of social media leading up to Election Day to help get young voters engaged. College students and other young people were among those who were affected by the state’s voter ID law during the 2018 midterm election.

Longtime North Dakota Native vote organizer Prairie Rose Seminole, a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes said, in a state of “do-er’s” the Turtle Mountain Youth Council stepped up to join that tradition in a big way.

“I went up there, and they’re calling through the phonebook for the second time to make sure people had rides, knew where they voted, and then they were marching in a blizzard,” Seminole said. “You know I just was so in awe of what the young people were doing a Turtle Mountain.”

Colten Birkland, Youth Council vice president, was among the young people sending numerous Facebook Live updates nearly round the clock in the days leading up to and throughout election day. In one he’s marching with other young people from their local high school to a nearby polling site in temperatures close to single digits.

“We made it,” Birkland said in the video. “This is a statement for anybody who is watching, and everybody
who is listening, we’re here and we’re not going anywhere.”

But their get-out-the-vote efforts didn’t start or stop there. With help from voting rights advocacy group Four Directions, and the Turtle Mountain Tribal Chairman Jamie Azure, they organized a hundred volunteers on Election Day, from poll monitors to attorneys with the Native American Rights Fund and drivers who provided rides to and from each polling site, all day. The Youth Council also set a goal to surpass the previous voter turnout for Rolette County, which includes the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians Reservation. Then Youth Council Chairwoman Alexis Davis documented the moment on Facebook Live when they hit their goal.

“4,619? We had to beat 4,169?” Davis asks while filming herself on video. “We beat it! We beat it! We beat it!”

Their continuous social media updates, volunteer calls-to-action, and appearances on local tribal radio station KEYA appears to have helped boost voter turnout. The final ballot count for Rolette County was just over 5,100–a new record.

(Top photo: screenshot of Alexis Davis and Edward Falcon, both from the Turtle Mt. Youth Council, during one of the many Facebook Live events they hosted leading up to and during Election Day 2018)

 

This story is a joint project with National Native News, Prairie Public Broadcasting and Solutions Journalism Network looking into how a potential setback for tribal members in North Dakota turned into a win for tribes, voters and Native candidates.

 

By Christine Trudeau

The election of Ruth Buffalo to the North Dakota legislature is already paying dividends for Native issues in the state. Buffalo is the first female Native American Democrat elected to the state’s House of Representatives.

Just months into her first term as state representative, North Dakota joined a handful of states allowing high school students to wear traditional regalia for graduation ceremonies. It’s the first bill introduced by Buffalo to be signed into law.

“Students can wear their eagle feathers and eagle plumes freely during their graduation ceremonies,” Buffalo said. “So, we’re pretty excited about that. Kind of sad in a way that needs to be enacted into law.”

Buffalo is a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. The regalia law is an example of what she says is unique about the perspective someone like her brings to elected office.

“It’s so important to have Native women in the legislature because we do bring, not only an Indigenous lens, but we understand the struggle that our ancestors have gone through and also as have mothers we have this inherent right to protect our communities,” Buffalo said

Buffalo is also the prime sponsor for several items currently in the legislature aimed at the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. If passed, the legislation would build data repositories for all missing persons, including a designated one for missing Indigenous people.

Buffalo was elected in south Fargo, a district not largely affected by the state’s controversial voter I.D. law requiring a physical address. But she ousted the incumbent Republican, Randy Boehning, the original sponsor of the law. Inaction on the voter I.D. law since the election has Buffalo concerned, as rural residents–many on reservations with a housing shortage–continue to have difficulties getting state verified physical addresses.

“It’s not only in our tribal communities…where the right of the people is being challenged by our current legislature,” she said. “So, there’s much work to be done and making sure that every citizen is able to exercise their right to true democracy.”

Buffalo says even though the voter I.D. law remains in effect, the last election proved Native people can still be a strong voting bloc. She and other voting rights advocates say it may even inspire other Native candidates to step forward in 2020.

Until then, Buffalo said, she hopes to engage Native voters and to help promote the visibility of Native people at in the political process.

“I want to invite everyone to come to the Capitol every day, just encouraging everyone to continue to ask questions, continue to stay engaged and extending a welcome to our elders to provide prayer,” she said. “We begin each of our sessions with a prayer. So it would be great to have Native American elders provide prayer here at the Capitol.”

(Photo: Ruth Buffalo right after taking the oath of office for the North Dakota House of Representatives; Courtesy–Lea Black Photography).

This story is a joint project with National Native News, Prairie Public Broadcasting and Solutions Journalism Network looking into how a potential setback for tribal members in North Dakota turned into a win for tribes, voters and Native candidates.

 

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This series is a joint project with National Native News, Prairie Public Broadcasting and Solutions Journalism Network looking into how a potential setback for tribal members in North Dakota turned into a win for tribes, voters and Native candidates.

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Faced with voting obstacles in North Dakota: ‘We’ll find a way’

Just weeks before the midterm election in North Dakota last November, voting rights advocates and tribes faced what seemed like an insurmountable task: to reach thousands of tribal members and others who could be turned away at the polls because of a new voter I.D. law. Tribal leaders, organizations, and volunteers came together to bring Native voters in compliance with the law, and in the process sparked one the largest Native vote turnouts ever in the state for a midterm election. Read the story here.

Listen here:

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Lawsuits to overturn North Dakota’s voter I.D. law remain in play

Despite legal setbacks leading up to the 2018 midterm elections in North Dakota, tribes and voting rights advocates still have hope they can overturn a state voter I.D. law. The courts have yet to decide on the merits of the two legal challenges to the law that the advocates maintain continues to threaten voting accessibility for thousands of tribal members in the state. Christine Trudeau has the second part in our series reviewing the ongoing legal fight over North Dakota’s unique voter I.D. law. Read the story here.

Listen here:

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Ruth Buffalo: North Dakota legislature through an Indigenous lens

The election of Ruth Buffalo to the North Dakota legislature is already paying dividends for Native issues in the state.
Buffalo is the first female Native American Democrat elected to the state’s House of Representatives. Just months into her first term as state representative, North Dakota joined a handful of states allowing high school students to wear traditional regalia for graduation ceremonies. It’s the first bill introduced by Buffalo to be signed into law. Read the story here.

Listen here:

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Native youth utilize organizational skills to rally young voters

North Dakota’s Native youth played a significant role in parts of the state to help get out the Native vote last November. Youth-led groups like the Turtle Mountain Youth Council reached out through numerous Facebook Live events and other forms of social media leading up to Election Day to help get young voters engaged. College students and other young people were among those who were affected by the state’s voter ID law during the 2018 midterm election. Read the story here.

Listen here:

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North Dakota’s voter I.D. law draws comparisons to  ‘poll tax’

Despite record-breaking Native voter turnout for the 2018 midterm election in North Dakota, tribes and voting rights advocates remain concerned about a controversial voter I.D. law. State officials show no sign of changing the law, but the issue received added attention at a U.S. House of Representatives committing hearing in the state. The presidential election is a year and a half away and there is no indication North Dakota lawmakers will make any changes to the voter I.D. law that threatens to exclude thousands of Native and rural voters. Read the story here.

 

 

Despite legal setbacks leading up to the 2018 midterm elections in North Dakota, tribes and voting rights advocates still have hope they can overturn a state voter I.D. law. The courts have yet to decide on the merits of the two legal challenges to the law that the advocates maintain continues to threaten voting accessibility for thousands of tribal members in the state.

The car in front of Standing Rock Sioux tribal member Terry Yellow Fat’s house is the only quiet place he can find to conduct an interview that offers shelter on a cold and windy Sunday afternoon.

“Yeah, I got a house full,” Yellow Fat said. “She cooked up a special dinner, so she invited a bunch of people:  menudo.”

Yellow Fat, a retired school teacher, has lived in this house in Fort Yates, North Dakota for decades. Most of those years he’s used a Post Office box as his primary address. That is until recently, when his tribe issued him a street address for emergency response purposes. But that address didn’t line up with what election officials had on file when he went to the polls.

“The address that when I look it up that they’re using now belongs to the local liquor store bar,” Yellow Fat said. “I was upset with that because I never drink in my life, and here I am, I’m listed as a liquor store.”

The experience prompted Yellow Fat to join a lawsuit with the Spirit Lake Tribe saying the North Dakota law requiring a physical address in order to cast a ballot infringes on their constitutional right to vote. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a handful of individuals are now also part of the suit.

Jacqueline De Leon, an attorney from the Native American Rights Fund, said even though the Supreme Court would not block the law before the last election, the disproportionate harm to many other Native voters, like Yellow Fat, remains clear.

“We still know that there are hundreds of people… potentially thousands of people out there that that still don’t have an I.D.,” De Leon said. “So you know there was a tremendous push this election but we don’t know–and are skeptical–that if the law remains on the books people will have I.D. going forward in the future.”

North Dakota is the only state without voter registration, and proponents of the physical address law say it helps prevent the potential for voter fraud, despite the limited number of credible voter fraud cases in the state. De Leon said the surprisingly large Native voter turnout last November was fortunate. But in the end, voters deserve a permanent solution to laws that erect barriers to their basic constitutional right, which is why NARF is continuing their legal challenges.

“Everybody was incredibly fired up about turnout, and the consequence was that the tribes ended up issuing hundreds of new ideas to prospective voters,” De Leon said.  “There were lines out the door. There were extended hours and it just showed how many people did not have an I.D. going into the election.”

De Leon said NARF is confident in their suit moving forward. And Terry Yellow Fat said he remains vigilant for any barriers  that might arise for the 2020 election..

“We’ve got to do something. Yeah, I feel that I am going to step forward again even if it takes another court case,” he said.

This story is a joint project with National Native News, Prairie Public Broadcasting and Solutions Journalism Network looking into how a potential setback for tribal members in North Dakota turned into a win for tribes, voters and Native candidates.