As a result, minority groups overall have lower turnout rates than whites. Voter suppression disproportionately affects minority groups across the country. Supreme Court gutted protections in the Voting Rights Act, states with a history of racial discrimination are no longer required to get federal clearance before enacting discriminatory legislation like BIPA. Reservations throughout the country lack access to polls and election resources, and the federal government still fails to accommodate nontraditional addresses. Today, Native communities in Montana aren’t alone in their struggle to vote. The new law violates the state constitutional right to vote, freedom of speech and freedom of association, and its vague and over-broad restrictions violate due process. The ACLU, the ACLU of Montana, and the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) are suing the state of Montana on behalf of the Native American led get-out-the-vote grassroots activist group Western Native Voice, whose ballot collection initiatives would no longer be possible under BIPA, and five tribes. As part of these efforts, ballot collectors distribute absentee ballots, collect them, and transport them to county election offices. Organized get-out-the-vote ballot collection efforts developed under this backdrop. boxes, but these boxes can be as far as 40 miles away, are irregularly checked, and are often shared between large extended families who pool their mail.įurther, sizable numbers of Native Americans on reservations live in poverty which impedes access to transportation, money for gasoline, and car insurance. boxes, and drop-off mail boxes result in limited access to regular mail. Non-traditional and informal mailing addresses along with the scarcity of post offices, post office boxes, P.O. Many Native Americans living in rural Montana lack home mail service. It’s not always possible to vote without assistance using an absentee ballot.
#Montana midterm elections full#
These locations are open for only a few days within the 30-day early voting period, whereas election county offices are open for the full 30 days. Nor have satellite polling locations been sufficient to provide equal access to the ballots. During last election season much of the state was covered with up to 40 inches of snow. In Montana, blizzards can begin as early as the fall. But transportation is by no means a guarantee of accessibility.
Many reservations lack access to public transportation, which makes it difficult to reach distant county election offices, and those who are able to get there have experienced discrimination. Few areas are as remote as Native American reservations.
0 kommentar(er)
