Indianz.Com > News > Montana Free Press: Western Native Voice takes up voting rights

Fighting for tribal voter access
Digital kiosks and legal arguments are one Native nonprofit’s answer to Montana’s new election laws.
Thursday, February 17, 2022
Montana Free Press
As the 67th Legislature deliberated changes to Montana election law last spring, tribal access to the polls emerged as a dominant thread of debate. Voting rights advocates and representatives from the Legislature’s American Indian Caucus routinely argued that voting was already tough enough for much of the state’s Indigenous population, and more restrictions would result in further disenfranchisement.
Over the past year, one of those constant voices of advocacy — the nonprofit Western Native Voice — has adopted a multipronged approach to helping Native voters cast ballots and reversing the negative impacts the group attributes to a slate of new laws. Western Native Voice lobbied heavily for the passage of House Bill 613, described by supporters as the Native American Voting Rights Act. The bill would have addressed several oft-cited voting difficulties in tribal communities by allowing tribal members to use expired tribal IDs and nontraditional addresses to register and establishing clear requirements for satellite election offices on reservations. The bill was rejected by the House on a narrow vote despite bipartisan support.
But Western Native Voice’s work wasn’t confined to the halls of the state Capitol. When the COVID-19 pandemic rendered traditional door-to-door registration drives in tribal communities too risky for the 2020 election cycle, the organization began developing an online voter registration portal as a way to continue its outreach.
That effort quickly evolved with the installation in 2021 of three digital kiosks in public spaces on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and a fourth in the lobby of Missoula’s All Nations Health Center, a strategy Western Native Voice says is its answer to the Legislature’s elimination of same-day voter registration. “Our whole goal was to expand the access to the online voter registration portal to as many places as possible,” Western Native Voice Deputy Director Ta’jin Perez told Montana Free Press. “So we’re thinking about public libraries, we’re thinking about tribal buildings, tribal clinics, health centers, cultural centers, and eventually, as things progress, working with private enterprise and businesses.” Perez added that two registration kiosks have been installed this year on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and in the lobby of the Helena Indian Alliance Center, and more will likely go up on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. Staff at each location have been trained to help users navigate the tablets and answer questions about how the process works. Perez estimated the cost of each kiosk at roughly $1,000, all of which is covered by his organization. To date, Perez said, Western Native Voice has received more than 2,000 voter registration applications through the portal since its launch in 2020.Along with our allies, #WesternNativeVoice works to increase the number of newly registered voters and voter turnout in Montana. Two more #voterregistration kiosks were installed on the Fort Belknap and Blackfeet nations this past week. pic.twitter.com/OLznpMIzI4
— Western Native Voice (@wnativevoice) February 15, 2022

Staff reporter Alex Sakariassen covers the education beat and the state Legislature for Montana Free Press. Alex spent the past decade writing long-form narrative stories that spotlight the people, the politics, and the wilds of Montana. A North Dakota native, he splits his free time between Missoula’s ski slopes and the quiet trout water of the Rocky Mountain Front. Contact Alex by email at asakariassen@montanafreepress.org.
Note: This story originally appeared on Montana Free Press. It is published under a Creative Commons license.
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