Oglala Sioux Want to Vote on the Rez

[Algernon Moncrieff]

RAPID CITY, S.D. (CN) - Oglala Sioux claim in court that Jackson County, S.D., is obstructing Native Americans' right to vote by refusing to set up a voter registration and balloting site on the remote Pine Ridge reservation.
Thomas Poor Bear, vice president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and three other tribal members sued Jackson County and its Board of Commissioners on Sept. 18, in Federal Court.
Reservation residents have to travel at least 27 miles to the county seat in Kadoka to register and vote, which is twice as far as white residents travel, according to the complaint.
Poor Bear asks that Jackson County set up a satellite voting office in the reservation town of Wanblee.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/09/22/71622.htm

[dhill926]

1. Reasonable request....

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. The reservation is sovereign tribal territory; it's not part of the United States, legally.

They can't vote there. They can cede tribal sovereignty, or vote absentee, but they can't vote on the reservation unless there's some change in the law.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

3. Yet they are citizens. They have a Constitutional right to vote.

Why, for example, couldn't they vote at the BIA hospital? It's a little piece of Federal land inside the Rez. Just a thought.

In the specific case of Pine Ridge, there is an awful irony. The tribal members can't cross into Nebraska to vote (because the reservation is in South Dakota), but businesses in Whiteclay have, for years, sold beer to be taken back into a reservation in which alcohol is illegal.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. They have a Constitutional right to vote in US elections at voting stations on US territory.

Or by absentee ballot if outside US territory. Just like everyone else. (I can't vote in a US election at a polling station in the UK. Not even at nominally US-controlled enclaves like embassies and consulates.)

[okasha]

5. I agree with this.

I would not like to see anyhing that might compromise Lakota sovereignty. It would be a really bad precedent.

[politicat]

6. Okay, so what's the problem with registering and mail ballots?

I've seen voter registration booths at Cabo San Lucas during Spring Break. The registrations came back to the US, got mailed to the relevant counties, easy peasey. It's not illegal to register someone to vote outside of the country or county of registration. (Rock the Vote does this regularly.)

If service members and everyone in Colorado and Oregon can mange to vote by mail without setting hair on fire, what's South Dakota's problem?

I get the sovereign territory argument. No, do not mess with that. But there are means and methods. The Dinè have as much territory, in two states. They manage this. Maybe it's worth asking?