Montana Free Press: Studying barriers to voting for Montana tribal communities

Monday, April 1, 2019  

HELENA — April is the final month of this year’s legislative session. Lawmakers are hearing legislation to study Native American access to voting.

In October 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that North Dakota could continue to require that voter IDs include a street address. The state’s Indian tribes say that ruling disenfranchised them, since many tribal communities rely on post office boxes and lack street addresses.

Sen. Alan Doane, R-Bloomfield, said those problems bring up questions for Montana too, especially if the state moves to an all-mail ballot system as has been proposed in past sessions. Doane introduced House Joint Resolution 10 in January, which would require the State-Tribal Relations Committee to conduct an interim study on barriers to voting by Montana’s Native Americans.

The interim study would examine Montana’s existing deadlines and voting procedures, including “requirements for physical addresses and identification.”

The bill also proposes the involvement of stakeholders, such as election administrators and representatives from Montana’s tribal nations, in the study.

HJ 10 passed easily through House committee and floor votes, and is scheduled for its first Senate State Administration Committee Hearing at 3 p.m. on Monday, April 4, in Room 335.

Hunter Pauli is a Seattle-born, Missoula-based freelance investigative reporter and graduate of the University of Montana School of Journalism. You can follow him on Twitter @paulimeth.

This story originally appeared on Montana Free Press on March 30, 2019. It is published under a Creative Commons license.