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“Until recently that would hardly have mattered. Many properties, from government buildings to small homes, have no formal street address. Members of the Lakota Sioux tribe who live on Standing Rock, like the Native Americans on four other reservations in North Dakota, just know where people live. Most residents use PO Boxes to collect their mail. For years, thousands have used their PO Boxes when registering formal identification documents.
Now, with less than two weeks left before the crucial midterm elections, that poses a problem some fear could change the outcome in a pivotal race.
Following a supreme court decision earlier in the month, North Dakota’s voter ID laws will go into effect in November. That means voters will be forced to show ID documents that include a full address before they can cast a ballot. The Republican-backed law has been branded a deliberate attempt to suppress the Native American vote.”
– The Guardian, ‘Every vote should count’: North Dakota ID law threatens Native Americans’ vote in key Senate race.
“The stakes couldn’t be much higher. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, is in an extremely tough re-election race in a state that President Trump won by 36 percentage points. If she loses, Democrats’ chances of taking the Senate, already pretty small, become minuscule. She’s behind in the polls, and if turnout is low among Native Americans — who helped elect her in 2012 — it will be all but impossible for her to come back.
That’s where the new law comes in. Under the requirement the Supreme Court just allowed to take effect, North Dakotans can’t vote unless they have identification that shows their name, birth date and residential address. Many people on Native American reservations don’t have residential addresses; they use P.O. boxes, and that’s not enough at the polls anymore.
Native Americans are about 5 percent of North Dakota’s 750,000 residents, and according to the Native American Rights Fund, they’re more than twice as likely as other voters to lack a form of identification acceptable under the new law. The district court that ruled earlier this year found that about 5,000 Native American voters did not have the necessary identification, and that about 2,300 of that number also lacked supplemental documentation.”
– NY Times, A Look at Where North Dakota’s Voter ID Controversy Stands.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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