Montana: Same Day voter registration measure can stay on ballot, with some changes | KBZK

The Montana Supreme Court says a referendum that might make it harder for some people to vote can stay on the November ballot — with revisions to the language that will appear with it. LR-126 would end same-day voter registration in Montana. A group of unions and voting-rights groups challenged the referendum, saying its title is inaccurate and misleading. They said the title of the bill wrongly suggests that ending same-day registration is required under federal law.

Montana: Groups ask Supreme Court to strike down referendums | Ravalli Republic

Some unions and other groups have asked the Montana Supreme Court to strike from the 2014 ballot two legislative referendums dealing with elections. They argue that Attorney General Tim Fox should have rejected both referendums because of legal problems with them. Fox’s staff and the bills’ sponsor, Sen. Alan Olson, R-Roundup, disagreed and said the measures approved by the 2013 Legislature should remain on the 2014 ballot. Legislative Referendum 126 would end voter registration on Election Day and move the registration deadline back to 5 p.m. on the Friday before Election Day, which is on Tuesday. The other measure, LR-127, would change Montana’s primary election to what’s known as the “top two” primary system.

Montana: Groups ask Montana court to strike referendums from ballot | The Missoulian

ome unions and other groups have asked the Montana Supreme Court to strike from the 2014 ballot two legislative referendums dealing with elections. They argue that Attorney General Tim Fox should have rejected both referendums because of legal problems with them. Fox’s staff and the bills’ sponsor, Sen. Alan Olson, R-Roundup, disagreed and said the measures approved by the 2013 Legislature should remain on the 2014 ballot. Legislative Referendum 126 would end voter registration on Election Day and move the registration deadline back to 5 p.m. on the Friday before Election Day, which is on Tuesday. The other measure, LR-127, would change Montana’s primary election to what’s known as the “top two” primary system.  Challenging LR-126 are the MEA-MFT, Montana AFL-CIO, Montana Public Employees Association, Montana Human Rights Network, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Montana Women Vote and Western Native Voice. “LR-126 is clear voter suppression, and it cuts across the board of affected groups – Native Americans, university students, people who have changed addresses and veterans,” said Eric Feaver, president of MEA-MFT, the union that is the lead plaintiff in both challenges.

Montana: Native Americans seek equal access to early voting precincts | Inter Press Service

In a lawsuit that could have nationwide implications for balot-box access for tribes across the United States, Native Americans from Montana are pushing for early voting precincts to be placed closer to the locations of three tribal reservations – the Crow, Northern Cheyenne, and Fort Belknap reservations. “I live in the most isolated area of the reservation. There are no services at all. This is the smallest community of the reservation. We have to drive 21 miles just to go to post office, go to store, go to clinic, gas station, stuff like that,” Mark Wandering Medicine, 66, of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, and the lead plaintiff in the suit, told IPS. He and others filed on Oct. 10, 2012, with the hope of obtaining emergency relief in time for the November 2012 election, as well as permanent relief going forward. The case recently headed back to the U.S. District Court of Montana, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit voided an earlier ruling by the district court.

Montana: Native Vote Lawsuit Heads Back to District Court and a New Judge | ICTMN

The Native voting-rights lawsuit, Wandering Medicine v. McCulloch, is headed back to Montana district court for a rematch. On October 30, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Portland, Oregon, dismissed the Montana tribal members’ appeal in the suit because it applied to reservation polling places they’d been denied for the 2012 election, and that election is over. However, the appeals panel also “vacated” the district court’s denial of the offices. In November 2012, the lower-court judge acknowledged that Montana’s Native people don’t have equal voting opportunities. However, since they have had some success electing representatives of their choice, they don’t need any more access, the judge reasoned. That judge has since retired following an unrelated scandal. Thanks to the Ninth Circuit’s decision, a new judge will hear the case and decide whether the reservation polling places should be provided in future elections.

Montana: Lawyers: Wrong standard used in Indian voting case | Associated Press

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will soon decide whether American Indians in rural Montana were wrongly denied on-reservation satellite voting offices that the plaintiffs say are needed to make up for the long distances they must drive to reach county courthouses. Attorneys representing tribal members and the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday told judges in Portland that a federal judge used the wrong legal standard when he denied a request to establish satellite election offices on three reservations. The attorneys said U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull overlooked the fact that some Indians are denied equal access to voting because they can’t afford to travel up to 150 miles to county courthouses. Cebull since has retired after forwarding an email with a racist joke about President Barack Obama. Montanans can vote by mail with early absentee ballots or by delivering ballots in person to county offices; late registration begins at county offices a month before Election Day.

Montana: Northern Cheyenne reservation fighting to secure voting rights | theguardian.com

Mark Wandering Medicine has sacrificed more than most for his country. He served six years in the US marines, fought through the bloodiest years of the Vietnam war and almost lost a leg when his scouting unit was ambushed near the North Vietnamese border in 1972. Since he returned home to the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana, however, he has received scant thanks for his service. He spent 13 years battling government bureaucrats before receiving his first disability payment. Like many Native Americans raised on desperately poor reservations in remote parts of the country, he has never lived far from the poverty line. Now he is fighting once more, this time to overcome a century and a half of disenfranchisement and secure voting rights for his fellow Native Americans. He has barely voted over the past 40 years, not because he hasn’t wanted to but because it is too difficult. The only sure way to register to vote, he says, is to make a 157-mile round trip from his home to the nearest county seat. There is no public transport, and most people can’t afford the trip – even assuming they have a working car with valid license plates and insurance, which is rarely the case. The few who do make the journey have to run a gamut of racism and hostility that, they say, can often land them in jail on charges of drunkenness and public disorder.

South Dakota: Ruling sides with Native group over costs of voting-rights lawsuit | The Argus Leader

Twenty-five Native Americans will not have to pay court costs related to their voting-rights lawsuit against the state and Fall River and Shannon counties, a federal judge ruled. The 25 plaintiffs from the Pine Ridge reservation sued in January 2012 to ensure they would get an in-person absentee voting station in Shannon County for the full period allotted by state law. In previous elections, in-person early voting was available only on a limited basis. After the lawsuit was filed, Secretary of State Jason Gant and local officials agreed to provide in-person absentee voting stations in both Shannon and Todd counties. Both counties do not have a courthouse, and the agreement would provide the early absentee voting stations through the 2018 election.

South Dakota: Gant forming task force on federal voting money; rights group calls it delay tactic | Associated Press

South Dakota Secretary of State Jason Gant said he’s forming a task force to address whether federal Help America Vote Act funds can be used to open satellite registration and early voting offices on three Native American reservations. But the head of a Mission-based voting rights group is calling Gant’s move a delay tactic. “They don’t need a committee,” O.J. Semans, executive director of Four Directions Inc., said Tuesday. “He has the authority to do it.” The 2002 Help America Vote Act was passed by Congress to address voter access issues identified during the 2000 election. Poverty on South Dakota’s reservations and the long distances to polling places hamper Native Americans’ ability to vote, Semans said. Semans has asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to look into the matter, and the American Civil Liberties Union and the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association support the request.

South Dakota: No deal on voting rights lawsuit fees | The Argus Leader

An inability to agree to the wording of a joint news release has stalled negotiations between the Four Directions voting rights advocacy group and the South Dakota Public Assurance Alliance, the insurance cooperative that provides liability coverage to local government entities in the state. Four Directions executive director O.J. Semans now plans a return to the court of public opinion to try to persuade the SDPAA to stop trying to recover $6,300 in court costs from 25 mostly low-income plaintiffs from the Oglala Sioux Tribe who filed a federal lawsuit against the state and Shannon and Fall River counties to get early voting provisions established on the tribe’s Pine Ridge Reservation. But SDPAA executive director Judy Payne said she thinks while an initial agreement could not be reached, talks between the insurance cooperative and Four Directions are ongoing. “We’re still waiting to hear from their attorney,” she said Thursday. SDPAA lawyer Sara Frankenstein and Four Directions lawyer Steven Sandven are the principals exchanging positions on a joint press statement, “as it should be,” Payne said.

South Dakota: Voting rights case settled, but legal costs question isn’t | The Argus Leader

An organization that lobbies for Indian voting rights is denouncing a decision by a lawyer for Fall River and Shannon counties to seek court costs against 25 Oglala Sioux Tribe members. The 25 plaintiffs sued the counties and the state last year, arguing they didn’t have equal opportunity to vote because Shannon County lacked early voting and voter registration satellite office, unlike other counties. Instead, residents in the mostly Native American county had an abbreviated satellite office or they had to drive to Fall River County, which administers elections for Shannon County. Many Native Americans don’t have a car. But a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit earlier this month after the state agreed to provide money for early voting satellite offices in both Shannon and Todd counties through 2018 for the full 46 days prescribed by state law. In dismissing the lawsuit, Judge Karen Schreier said that because of the agreement, the plaintiffs did not face imminent harm.

South Dakota: State cited in federal election complaint | The Argus Leader

An organization that asked Secretary of State Jason Gant and the state Board of Elections to approve three early voting satellite offices in Indian Country filed a complaint Tuesday with the civil rights division of the Justice Department. Four Directions, an advocacy group for Native American voting rights, filed the complaint almost a week after Gant and the Board of Elections declined to establish early voting offices in Fort Thompson, Eagle Butte and Wanblee. The group contends that residents in the predominantly Native American communities don’t have an equal opportunity to vote or register to vote before an election when compared to residents in other parts of the state.

South Dakota: Push for satellite voting centers intensifies | Rapid City Journal

Tribal-voting advocates are pressuring South Dakota Secretary of State Jason Gant to approve the release of federal funds for satellite voting centers to serve Native American voters in 2014. Four Directions Inc., a Native American voting rights group based on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, asked the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday to investigate Gant’s refusal to release Help America Vote Act funds for voting centers at Wanblee, Eagle Butte and Fort Thompson. Four Directions also wants DOJ to investigate the recent refusal  to support the satellite requests by the state Board of Elections on a 4-3 vote with Gant leading and voting with the opposition. Four Directions Executive Director O.J. Semans attacked those decisions in his letter to the DOJ, saying they reflected ongoing inequality in voting access for tribal people. Semans wrote “it should cause you and everyone who cares about equal access to the ballot box for Native Americans grave concern that this denial is steeped in an intent to discriminate.”

South Dakota: Native American Vote-Suppression Scandal Escalates | Huffington Post

South Dakota has devised an ingenious new way to curb minority voting. For decades, suppressing the Native American vote here has involved activities that might not surprise those who follow enfranchisement issues: last-minute changes to Indian-reservation polling places, asking Native voters for ID that isn’t required, confronting them in precinct parking lots and tailing them from the polls and recording their license-plate numbers. The state and jurisdictions within it have fought and lost some 20 Native voting-rights lawsuits; a major suit is still before the courts. Two South Dakota counties were subject to U.S. Department of Justice oversight until June of this year. That’s when the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, saying, “Today, our Nation has changed.” Yes, it has. The VRA decision provided an opening for those who are uncomfortable when minorities, the poor and other marginalized citizens vote. Since the decision, new measures to limit enfranchisement have swept the country — mostly gerrymandering and restrictions on allowable voter IDs.

South Dakota: Indian voting centers not approved by state elections board | The Argus Leader

The South Dakota Board of Elections on Wednesday declined to endorse a proposal from an advocacy group that called for using federal funds to establish satellite voting centers in three predominantly Native American towns. Four Directions Inc. of Mission requested that the board endorse its plan to use money from the Help America Vote Act, which Congress passed after the contentious 2000 presidential election to modernize voting procedures and administration. The state has about $9 million remaining in HAVA funds, and for less than $50,000 an election, HAVA funds could be used to establish satellite voting centers in Wanblee, Eagle Butte and Fort Thompson. All three towns have larger populations than their respective county seats. Fort Thompson, for example, has a population of 1,375 people, while the county seat of Buffalo County, Gann Valley, has a population of 14. County seats, however, are the only places where people can cast in-person absentee ballots.

South Dakota: Board defers stand on Indian voting stations | The Bellingham Herald

A state panel declined Wednesday to go on record as supporting a plan to set up satellite voter registration and absentee voting offices on three American Indian reservations in South Dakota. The State Election Board voted 4-3 against a plan to support the satellite voting stations after some members said the state first must consult a federal agency to find out whether federal funds can legally be used for the stations. Secretary of State Jason Gant will send a formal request asking the U.S. Election Assistance Commission whether funds South Dakota received from the Help America Vote Act of 2002 can be used for the three stations. Three Indian tribes and a voting-rights group have asked South Dakota to help set up satellite voter registration and absentee voting offices for tribal members who live far from county courthouses. The state is being asked to use federal money to help operate satellite stations at Fort Thompson on the Crow Creek Reservation, at Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Reservation and at Eagle Butte on the Cheyenne River Reservation.

Editorials: Conservative Supreme Court Justices Hypocritical on Voting Rights | US News and World Report

Most reaction to this week’s Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act will center on whether the court was right that the law (or at least its Section 5) is outdated. But under the approach long advocated by the court’s majority that very argument is itself outdated. The conservative vision of an unchanging Constitution – that means for all time what the Framers meant when they wrote it –  has triumphed on the court, in which case, it doesn’t matter whether times have changed and the VRA is “outdated.” If it was constitutional when adopted, it should still be constitutional today. In short, the VRA’s invalidation by those who trumpet conservative values is really about just one thing: hypocrisy. For years, conservatives have argued for a theory of constitutional interpretation called “originalism.” Originalism asserts that a constitution must mean what its framers originally intended it to mean – at least until that constitution is formally changed through the required mechanism of amendment. Liberals, in contrast, tend to argue that a constitution must be a “living document” that changes and grows with the times.

North Dakota: Voter ID Law Threatens to Silence Native Americans | Counterpunch

One would think that if you’re a U.S. Congressman who insulted your state’s largest minority population and threatened bodily injury to their Tribally-elected leaders while in the process of verbally assaulting a Native American woman at a very public state coalition meeting for Abused Women’s Services that you would apologize.  That would be the smart, decent thing to do, right? Apparently North Dakota Congressman Kevin Cramer doesn’t think so.  On March 26, 2013, he spent nearly half an hour laying into Melissa Merrick, the Director of the Spirit Lake Victim Assistance Program.  She’s also a tribal member who happens to be a survivor of child sexual abuse.  During that time, Cramer reportedly stated in front of a roomful of domestic violence advocates that he wanted to “wring the Spirit Lake tribal council’s necks and slam them against the wall.”  He also called tribal governments dysfunctional, and went on a tirade against provisions in the Violence Against Women Act that are meant to protect Native American women.  His tantrum was so disturbing that attendees at the meeting got up and left.  By the time the dust settled, another Native American woman present was in tears.

Arizona: Proposal to change voter-registration rules fueling debate

To Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, the state law requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration is “common sense,” not a burden. To opponents, Arizona’s Proposition 200 is just another obstacle that would restrict access to the polls for the young, elderly and minorities. The U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in this month in a hearing that will be watched closely by voting-rights advocates and by several other states with similar laws. At issue in the March 18 hearing is a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said federal law trumps state law on voter-registration requirements. The appeals court said in April that voters could use a federal mail-in registration form, established by the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which requires that they attest to their citizenship only through a signature.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act still needed | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

A case before the U.S. Supreme Court once again asks the justices to change the Voting Rights Act of 1965, arguably one of the nation’s most effective civil-rights laws. Since its inception, the number of blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans in the political process has grown almost to the point of parity with white voters. Such progress was cited last week when attorneys representing Shelby County, Ala., asked the justices to strike down a key provision in the law because they believe it has served its purpose. Granted, a lot has changed since blacks in the South were denied the right to vote due to rigid laws and societal norms that denied them basic rights because of the color of their skin. The days of Jim Crow have passed. But the need for strong federal oversight to protect against discriminatory voting practices has not. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is still needed, as is Section 5, the key component that requires a select group of states, counties and other jurisdictions with the worst history of racial discrimination to obtain approval from the U.S. Department of Justice before implementing any change to their voting procedures.

Montana: With 2014 Elections Looming, Ninth Circuit Agrees to Hear Native American Voting-Rights Appeal | ICTMN.com

On February 20, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which includes the nine westernmost states, said it would hear the appeal of a Montana voting-rights lawsuit. The appeal arose when a Montana federal judge, Richard Cebull, denied a 2012 request from Native voters for a preliminary injunction ordering early-voting/late-registration satellite offices on the Northern Cheyenne, Crow and Fort Belknap reservations. The judge made his decision on October 30, 2012, and filed his order on Election Day, November 6. “This lawsuit, filed after months of requests for the satellite offices, could not be more timely,” said Blackfeet tribal member Tom Rodgers, who is working with Four Directions, a voting-rights group. “We see similar issues for tribes nationwide—efforts to impede Native registration, to limit the time for voting and to make it more difficult. All rights in a democracy flow from the right to vote.” For several election cycles, Four Directions has pressed for Native access to early voting, a convenient form of balloting that has increased election participation nationwide.

National: Experts Debate Effects of Voting Rights Act Provision on Native Americans | The Blog of Legal Times

Days before the U.S. Supreme Court was set to hear arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, a case challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, legal experts said they feared that striking it down would hurt Indian Country and Native American voters. Enacted in 1965 as a temporary provision, Section 5 freezes election practices or procedures in certain states and local governments, mostly in the south, until the new procedures have been subjected to review or “precleared” by the Justice Department or a federal court. Congress has since reauthorized Section 5 four times. Currently, it is set to expire in 2031. In order to make changes to their voting rules, the states in question must demonstrate that the rules do not have the purpose of discriminating — or that regardless of intent, that the new rules will not have a discriminatory effect — based on race or color, or against a “language minority group,” including persons who are American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Natives, or of Spanish heritage.

Editorials: New York Should Hate the Voting Rights Act | Slate Magazine

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the highly anticipated case Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder. At stake is the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the provision that requires jurisdictions with histories of voter suppression and disenfranchisement to “preclear” any proposed change in electoral procedures with federal authorities before implementation, in order to ensure that they have no discriminatory effects. Unsurprisingly, many of the jurisdictions covered by Section 5 have lined up with Shelby County, urging the court to strike down a provision they believe punishes them for the sins of their grandfathers. Pro-Shelby County amicus briefs, which allow interested third parties to weigh in on the constitutional issues at hand, have been filed by the Republican attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas. But a handful of covered jurisdictions have weighed in on the other side. Most notable among them is New York City, which asserts that Congress is within its constitutional authority to subject the city to special procedures on account of discrimination dating back nearly a century. The reasons why Southern states like Alabama and Georgia are covered by Section 5 are well known. At the close of Reconstruction, the resurgent white elite in these states relied on dastardly legal strategies and violence, up to and including outright murder, to keep African-Americans from voting, especially in the majority-black counties that blanket the Deep South. In other historically majority-minority sections of the country, native-born whites used similar albeit generally less violent voter suppression schemes to keep Latinos from voting, in states like Arizona and Texas, and Native Americans from casting ballots, in places like Alaska and South Dakota.

National: From Arizona to Montana, Native Voters Struggle for Democracy | The Nation

Leonard Gorman is a man of maps. He heads the Navajo Nation’s Human Rights Commission, which among other responsibilities, is charged with protecting and promoting Navajo voters’ rights to choose candidates who will reasonably represent their interests. He and his team all work out of their trailer office in Window Rick, Arizona—the Navajo Nation’s capitol—where they chart data that they’ve collected on the potential impacts of redistricting on the Navajo Nation. The first map Gorman’s team submitted to the Arizona Redistricting Commission resembled the letter J, encompassing the edge of Arizona’s eastern border and curving up towards the west. Although that map included large portions of Arizona’s Native population, the Navajo Nation later opted out of it because Arizona’s hardline anti-immigrants liked it too much. It included large southern border areas, where white conservative ranchers are more likely to vote Republican and would have infringed on Arizona’s growing Latino districts. “We immediately learned that the J map was playing into the extreme right position,” explains Gorman.

Montana: Tribal members sue for voting access | Missoulian

A group of American Indians from the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap reservations sued state and county election officials in federal court on Wednesday, seeking equal access to voting through satellite offices. The lack of satellite election offices on reservations, the plaintiffs allege, forces Indians to drive long distances to vote at the county seat, is discriminatory and denies Indians their voting and civil rights under federal law and the U.S. and Montana constitutions. A few of the 15 plaintiffs and consultants assisting with the case gathered outside the federal courthouse in Billings on Wednesday to discuss the issue. Plaintiff Marty Other Bull, a Crow tribal member and registered voter who lives in Crow Agency, votes in person. While he has a greater opportunity to vote at the Big Horn County election office in Hardin, about 15 miles away, Other Bull said many tribal members in Wyola, Lodge Grass and Pryor have to travel farther. “For us to be traveling to Hardin, it’s a hardship for most of us. This is a good step to work together,” Other Bull said.

National: Study Shows Voter ID Laws Could Disenfranchise 1 Million Young Minority Voters | Huffington Post

An estimated 700,000 young minority voters could be barred from voting in November because of photo ID laws passed across the country in recent years, according to a new study. The number of minority voters under the age of 30 likely to be disenfranchised by these new voting laws — passed overwhelmingly by Republican-led legislatures across the country — is a conservative estimate, according to the study’s authors. The actual number of voters in that category who could be disenfranchised is probably closer to 1 million, they said. The projections include African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders. “It’s a reminder that our voting rights have always been under attack and probably always will be,” said Cathy Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who co-authored the report, Turning Back the Clock on Voting Rights: The Impact of New Photo Identification Requirements on Young People of Color.

National: National Native American leader wants Indian Health Service to provide voter registration | The Washington Post

The head of the largest group representing Native Americans and Alaska Natives said federal and state governments should provide voter registration at Indian Health Service facilities. Jefferson Keel, president of the National Congress of American Indians, said in a phone interview Tuesday with The Associated Press that the health facilities should be designated voter registration sites in the same way state-based public assistance agencies are under the National Voter Registration Act. He said the facilities are ideal for voter registration because they’re in many tribal communities. “Not all Native Americans are registered, and that’s one of the things we are pushing for this year is to turn out the largest Native vote in history,” Keel said. Indian Health Service spokeswoman Dianne Dawson, reached late Tuesday evening, said the agency had no comment at this time.