"We just saw some $6 billion spent on the most expensive election in history. It’s a couple of weeks later, and I think I’ve recovered from the drama and excitement. Here in the North Country, we are rather saturated with Fox News, and lack, frankly, discussion of what is going on outside of our lakes and woods. And, we are a conservative bunch, generally, perhaps, except the Native community.

So, I thought that I’d take this time to share some thoughts on this past election. After all, I certainly know what losing a national election is like. Maybe Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan might be interested in my opinion.

What have we learned?

We learned that people want to be heard. Florida, that very contentious state, with hanging chads and rumored to have cost Al Gore the 2000 election (often blamed on Ralph Nader and myself) is still having problems. People stood in line for up to seven hours to vote. It seems that it was harder to vote if you were dark. In fact, according to the Hart Research Project, and the AFL-CIO, voting lines were twice as long for African Americans in general than for white voters. And, in general 15 percent of Obama supporters spent over a half hour waiting to vote, while only 9 percent of Romney supporters had to wait."

Get the Story:
Winona LaDuke: Moving On: Election 2012 and Some Lessons (Indian Country Today 11/22)

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