Sisseton-Wahpeton activist Dustina Gill
South Dakota State Rep. Kevin Killer, one of the principal leaders of the statewide get-out-the-Native-vote effort, told Daily Kos this weekend:
As always, Pilamiya ("Thank You" in Lakota) for the wonderful support. We had all of our organizers focus this past week on registering voters in Rapid City, Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River. The funds raised helped us turn in over hundreds of voter registration forms to our county auditors, thanks in part to the many organizers like Wiyaka Eagleman. It has been a tremendous honor to serve our community in the South Dakota Legislature since 2008. Hearing about Wiyaka's determination to register voters and get them to the auditors before the deadline highlights the determination and power of our young Dakota/Lakota people to make a difference. Again, showing tremendous gratitude for Markos, Neeta, Meteor Blades and the Daily Kos community for your wonderful outpouring of support to help us empower our communities through electoral efforts in South Dakota!
So far, Daily Kos support of the campaign to register voters on the state's nine Indian reservations and get them to the polls has
raised nearly $158,000 from more than 13,600 donors. Which means y'all rock!
That campaign could have a significant impact on whether Rick Weiland gets elected to the U.S. Senate since the Indians who do cast ballots in South Dakota tend to vote about 80 percent Democratic. But, whether he wins or loses, the work done this year will have positive implications for the future, not just for the Senate or the House but for down-ballot candidates and ballot issues as well.
Ever since the Snyder Act of 1924 extended citizenship to all American Indians, South Dakota officials have sought to suppress their voting with a mixture of blatant and subtle tactics designed to keep as many of them away from the polls as possible.
So bad was this discrimination that two counties of South Dakota were required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to pre-clear any changes in voting law, a provision that mostly affected the worst states of the Jim Crow South. But even that didn't stop the county authorities from finding ways to make it difficult for Indians to vote and for reducing the impact of those who voted in spite of the obstacles.
This year was no different on that score. Take, for instance, Roberts County in the northeasternmost part of South Dakota. Most of the county's territory is part of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate (Sioux) reservation, although only a third of the county population is Indian. Like the other reservations of the state, Sisseton-Wahpeton is heavily rural. Despite the difficulty many tribal members have reaching the polls for lack of transportation, county officials refused requests this year to set up satellite voting stations. It was that refusal, says tribal member and key organizer Dustina Gill, that sparked her to approach the folks at the Great Plains Get Out the Native Vote project to establish the 2014 Rez Tour. Of the county's refusal and subsequent organizing to get around it, Gill told Daily Kos:
I was shocked and knew there wasn't enough time to focus on an argument with them and GOTV at the same time, so I thought, the vote is more important and I will address that after elections and I decided to do the statewide tour. I knew Sisseton wasn't alone in this battle and knew we all faced the same issues, so a reztour might help us all. [...]
When I talked to Rep. Killer [an Oglala-Kiowa from Pine Ridge reservation] about it, I wasn't sure what we were going to expect, but we knew it would work out because when you put your heart in something it always does. We never expected in a million years it would turn out like this.
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There's more from Gill and Chase Iron Eyes below the fold.
South Dakota State Rep. Kevin Killer
Gill continued:
We all know what our people face on a daily basis at home on the reservation, in the state and on the Hill in D.C. We know what needs to be done and it takes a vote to make that change happen. This tour was something we all believed in because it was the vehicle to bring that change and awareness.
We didn't expect any attention for our efforts other than from the people on the reservations. When people started donating, I called Kevin and said OMG Kevin and we were quiet on the phone ... It was hard to absorb and know that people wanted to help us! [...]
I know our only weapon to fight the constant infringement on our sovereignty is our vote. A vote is today's weapon and our voice.
I go up on the Hill a lot and see the need for "Indian 101" so better decisions can be made. I saw that in Rick about two years ago. He can take that to D.C. and make sure it happens.
Roberts County wasn't the only place undermining Indian turnout at the polls this year.
As Kira Lerner reports, South Dakotans have been voting absentee for weeks now. But the Indians on the Crow Creek reservation that make up 80 percent of the population of Buffalo County haven't received their ballots yet. They could participate in early voting. But it's a 50-mile drive to Gann Valley, the town with a population of 14 that is the only site for early voting in the county. The Crow Creek people couldn't persuade officials to open an early voting site at the reservation town of Fort Thompson, population 1,282.
As a consequence, Gill and others in the GOTV effort have made arrangements for buses to transport Crow Creek people to the polls in Gann Valley.
For its past efforts at suppressing the Indian vote, Buffalo was one of the two counties covered by the pre-clearance rules of the Voting Rights Act until the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the law in 2013.
Indian activist Chase Iron Eyes
Another leading Indian activist, and one of the main forces behind The Last Real Indians website and a new print newspaper of that same name, is Chase Iron Eyes. He has been working to register voters and get out the Native vote in Rapid City and on the Standing Rock reservation, which straddles the border between South Dakota and North Dakota. He told Daily Kos last week:
The fundraising campaign to register voters and get Natives to the polls in South Dakota has been the spark needed to activate us in not only South Dakota but every other Indian-heavy state. We hold swing vote power. [...] We have everything to lose if we don't vote. Voting concentration leads to political power, social clout and economic self reliance for natives on the Rez or in urban treaty lands.
The key to improving turnouts, whether of Indians or of other people who are less likely to vote than the average American, is building year-round efforts instead of solely focusing on getting the vote out in the few weeks before an election. The campaign to improve the turnout in South Dakota, which dates back to 2002, is part of that long-term challenge. The dedication of the people who have led and participated in it are an inspiration.
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(
navajo contributed to the creation of this diary.)