Oliver Semans: Seeing the light on Native voting rights struggle

After spending the eight years in meetings—with state and national legislators, state secretaries of state, and county commissioners and election officials—and helping organize two major federal voting-rights lawsuits, I’m starting to see some light at the end of the equal-rights tunnel. Notably, the Department of Justice now has our backs. On August 26, 2014, in Flagstaff, Arizona, DOJ will consult with tribes on voting rights in Indian country, and will follow up with telephonic meetings on September 3 and 4 (to participate, call 866-524-3160).

I am ecstatic about this and about recent developments in Minnesota. Working on voting equality for tribal nations there was like taking a breath of fresh air. White Earth Nation Chairwoman Dr. Erma J. Vizenor took the lead by inviting the Minnesota secretary of state and county officials to meet about satellite voting offices on reservations. The meeting was well attended, and the participants established a dialogue. Chairwoman Vizenor worked with Eileen O’Connor, Senior Counsel for the Legal Mobilization Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to ensure that everyone understood the importance of the polling places. The White Earth Nation also reached out to the Leech Lake and Red Lake nations, and they made requests to their respective counties for satellite offices on their reservations.

What makes Minnesota stand out was that state and county officials maintained communications with the tribes, never shutting the door on the process. Via ongoing dialogue, the Becker, Beltrami, Cass, Itasca and Mahnomen counties voluntarily agreed to place satellite offices on the three tribal nations. The counties signed onto what we consider the gold standard of equality and placed the offices within the tribal headquarters. The secretary of state was supportive, helping with technical issues when necessary. This was a great moment for Indian country.

The Minnesota process couldn’t have been more different from Four Directions’ journey through South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. In each of these states, counties (except Dewey, in South Dakota) dug in, claiming they didn’t have office space, funding, or additional personnel needed to run reservation polling places—and by the way, they couldn’t hire Indians to help because “we don’t know them,” a coded way of saying they don’t trust us.