"They lost a Native voter. "He's large. He's really dark. And he has a really booming voice,'' said Ruth Quequesah, a volunteer vote coordinator on the Flathead Indian Reservation who has worked for months to register voters and get them to the polls Tuesday.

Quequesah felt the citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes was treated unfairly at the polls because he was Native. And when an election judge in Polson failed to offer him a provisional ballot, the man left the polling place upset. He never did return to vote.

It was just the sort of situation Get-Out-the-Vote volunteers hoped to avoid. And it was the reason students at the University of Montana's Indian Law Clinic canvassed Montana's seven reservations on Election Day with nearly 50 lawyers and student volunteers."

Get the Story:
State's native voters face challenges (The Missoulian 11/3)

Relevant Links:
Native Vote 2004 - http://www.nativevote.org

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