Native Americans living on a remote Montana reservation filed a lawsuit Monday against state and county officials, saying they do not have enough places to vote in person — a move denied by tribes for decades on equal voting opportunities in the United States. The latest chapter in the ongoing conflict.
Six members of the Fort Peck Reservation want satellite voting offices in their communities for late registration and the ability to vote before Election Day without making the long drive to the county courthouse.
The legal challenge, filed in state court, comes five weeks before the presidential election in a pivotal U.S. Senate race in a state where the Republican candidate has made derogatory comments about Native Americans.
Native Americans were granted US citizenship a century ago. Advocates say the right still doesn’t always bring equal access to the ballot.
Many tribal members in rural western states live in remote communities with limited resources and transportation. This can make it difficult to reach election offices, which in some cases are located beyond the reservation.
The plaintiffs in the Montana lawsuit live in two small communities near the Canadian border on the Fort Peck Reservation, which is home to the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. Plaintiffs’ attorney Cher Old Elk grew up in one of those communities, Fraser, Montana, where more than a third of people live below the poverty line and per capita income is about $12,000, according to Census data.
It is a journey of 60 miles from Fraser to the election office at the Courthouse in Glasgow. Old Elk says it could force potential voters into tough choices.
“It’s not just gas money; it’s actually a vehicle that runs,” she said. “Is it food on my table, or is it gas money to find a vehicle, find a ride, get to Glasgow to vote?”
The lawsuit asks a state judge to order a settlement forcing Valley and Roosevelt counties and Republican Secretary of State Christy Jacobsen to create satellite election offices in Frayser and Poplar, Montana. The offices will be open the same hours and days as the county courts.
The lawsuit says the plaintiffs requested satellite election offices from the counties earlier this year. Roosevelt County officials reportedly refused, while Valley County officials said budget constraints limited them to opening satellite voting centers for only one day.
Valley County Attorney Dylan Jensen said there were only two full-time employees in the clerk and recorder office that oversees elections, so staffing the satellite office would be problematic.
“It will be difficult to do this over a long period of time and still maintain regular business,” he said.
A spokeswoman said Jacobsen’s office had encouraged tribes and counties to work together to set up satellite offices as needed under a 2015 state election directive by Jan. 31.
Richie Melby, Jacobsen’s communications director, said, “As noted in the directive, this type of conversation would have occurred months ago.”
Melby said Jacobsen’s office served all Montana voters and said the controversy was instigated by “political operatives.”
Roosevelt County Clerk and Recorder Tracy Miranda did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier efforts to secure Native American voting rights helped lead to changes in recent years that expanded electoral access for tribal members in South Dakota and Nevada.
A 2012 federal lawsuit in Montana sought to establish satellite election offices on the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap reservations. This was rejected by a judge, but the decision was later overturned by an appeals court. In 2014, tribal members reached settlements with authorities in several counties in the case.
Monday’s lawsuit said disparities persist on the Fort Peck reservation, and tribal members have never achieved fully equal voting rights since Montana was first organized as a territory in 1864 and Native Americans Was kept out of its elections. In later years native voters faced barriers to registration and were sometimes excluded from the voter rolls.
“Similar means identical,” said plaintiffs’ expert witness Brett Healy, who was also involved in the 2012 Montana case. “If there is no satellite office on an Indian reservation it is not equal, factually, mathematically and logically.”