Tribes miss increased early voting access opportunity

HELENA – Tribal voters on the Fort Belknap and Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservations do not have increased access to early voting options this election season despite the settlement of a federal lawsuit that should have made it possible.

Two of the three tribes affected by the settlement didn't send a letter to the counties indicating what tribal building and room would be offered for the service by the Aug. 1 deadline.

Northern Cheyenne tribal member Mark Wandering Medicine, along with 11 other Indian plaintiffs, in February 2013 sued Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch and county elections officials in Blaine, Rosebud and Big Horn counties, alleging the defendants violated portions of the federal Voting Rights Act, which "prohibit voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in one of the language minority groups."

The plaintiffs argued their rights to equal access to voting were violated when McCulloch and county elections officials refused to set up satellite voting offices on remote Indian reservations in advance of the November 2012 presidential election.

The plaintiffs claimed tribal members living on the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap reservations are at a voting disadvantage compared to non-Indian voters in Rosebud, Blaine and Big Horn counties because voters living on the reservations didn't have as easy access to late voter registration, early voting and in-person absentee voting.

Those services are only provided at elections offices located in the county seat, which are located long distances from core tribal population centers.

The two sides in June settled the lawsuit out of court with an agreement that the counties would move their election administration offices from the county seats to tribal buildings at Fort Belknap Agency, Crow Agency and Lame Deer for two days a week during the month leading up Election Day.

The Crow Tribe sent a letter to Big Horn County and the alternate offices are up and running two days a week there, but the Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap tibal officials missed the deadline.

"The agreement was that they (Northern Cheyenne) let us know by the Aug. 1 deadline whether they wanted it or not and they did not send a letter by the deadline," said Rosebud County election administrator Geraldine Custer.

Custer said the tribe faxed a letter to the county more than a month after the deadline, but by then it was too late to implement the alternate election office in part because the county had passed over funding to purchase a ballot printing machine.

In Blaine County, the letter requesting the alternate voting office arrived four days after the deadline, Blaine County Attorney Donald Ranstrom said.

Ranstrom said the county did not make an exception to the Aug. 1 deadline out of concern that it could invalidate the settlement agreement.

"The concern we had, and continue to have, is we spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and money and resources getting to where we got to with this agreement. We weren't going to allow any argument to be made that 'by modifying the terms, you've scrapped the agreement,'" Ranstrom said.

It's not clear why the tribes did not send the letters requesting the alternate voting offices. Ranstrom and Custer said it appeared the tribes were unaware of the Aug. 1 deadline.

Tribal officials did not return calls seeking comment.

O.J. Seamans is the executive director of Four Directions, a national Indian voting rights organization based out of South Dakota and one of the parties to the 2013 lawsuit.

Seamans said the counties could have opened the offices if they wanted to under guidelines set forth by the secretary of state. Seamans said it is obvious the tribes wanted to have the offices open and the counties knew that.

"Fort Belknap sent another letter saying, 'If you're not going to consider opening one up under the settlement agreement, then set it up based on the secretary of state's guidelines.' The tribe will pay for all the equipment and they will still provide the office space for free. They said no," Seamans said.

Seamans called the counties' refusal to open the offices based on the missed deadline "ridiculous."

"It's an obstacle that was created to deny equal access," Seamans said. "I believe the county can do it. You take away their excuse, and it comes down to the this: We don't want Indianans to vote."

The county officials say it was Four Directions, the driving force behind the Wandering Medicine lawsuit, that dropped the ball, not the counties.

"My personal feeling is Four Directions, who is really the true litigant here, simply screwed up, plain and simple," Ranstrom said. "They did not get back to the tribes and explain to them, 'This is the deadline, you have to do it by this date, this is what you have to do.'"

While tribal members on the Fort Belknap and and Northern Cheyenne reservations won't have increased access to early voting and late registration at satellite offices this election cycle, they'll still be able to request for alternate election administration locations in future election cycles.

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