• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. voter identification>

Bid to make tribal IDs a valid voters’ proof in N.D. advances in federal court

David Hawkings
February 13, 2020
Native American polling site

Tribal IDs do not have residential addresses, which North Dakota Republicans made a voter ID requirement in 2013.

Rick Scibelli/Getty Images

Native Americans have the right to challenge North Dakota's voter identification requirements in federal court, a judge ruled this week.

The decision is a rare, and only marginal, legal win for advocates of Native American political rights. Just last week for example, the Republican-majority Legislature in neighboring South Dakota killed a bill that would have permitted tribal identification cards as proof of identity and residency when registering to vote.

Tribal IDs are also at the center of the North Dakota litigation. State law requires voters to have identification with a verifiable, physical street address. But those can be hard to come by on reservations, where a post office box is what many residents have long relied on.


The Spirit Lake Nation and the Standing Rock Sioux, along with six individual Native Americans, argue in their suit that the address requirement violates the Constitution's equal protection guarantee and also the Voting Rights Act. They were given a green light to press their case on Monday by federal District Judge Daniel Hovland in Bismarck, who rejected the state's effort to get the case tossed out.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say their ultimate aim is to give the Supreme Court an opening to revisit the tribal ID issue. Two years ago the court declined to reconsider a lower court ruling upholding the address requirement, but on somewhat narrow grounds.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The Republican secretary of state argues the law was designed to prevent voter fraud, the same rationale cited by the GOP legislators who blocked the use of address-free tribal IDs in South Dakota.

But advocates maintain the real motive in these and a few other states is to suppress the Native American vote, which skews decidedly Democratic. (North Dakota did not have an address requirement until 2013, when Republicans acted after big turnout on the reservations helped Heidi Heitkamp win a Senate seat in an unusual statewide victory for the Democrats.)

Seventy of 110 Navajo Nation chapters in Arizona, for example, do not have street names or numbered addresses, which accounts for at least 50,000 unmarked properties, Navajo Nation Attorney General Doreen McPaul told the House Administration Committee on Tuesday.

Democrats at the hearing said that and other testimony underscored the rationale for expansive federal legislation to boost Native American voting rights, which has 94 sponsors but has not begun to move in the House. Among other provisions, the bill would provide federal funding to increase registration sites in Indian Country and mandate that tribal ID cards be valid for registration.

From Your Site Articles
  • Civil rights groups sound alarm about census undercount - The ... ›
  • Voter ID laws don't seem to suppress minority votes - The Fulcrum ›
  • Poverty, isolation prevent Native Americans from voting - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • How Native Americans Are Fighting North Dakota's Voter ID Law ... ›
  • North Dakota Voter ID Law Could Keep Rural Native Americans ... ›
  • Many Native IDs Won't Be Accepted At North Dakota Polling Places ... ›
voter identification

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

The conservative mind at 70

Michael Lucchese

Fulcrum Rewind: How to get along at Thanksgiving

Debilyn Molineaux
David L. Nevins

How reforming felony murder laws can reduce juvenile justice harms

Margaret Mikulski

What if neither party can govern?

John Opdycke

The case for the 4th, from a part-time American

Flora Roy

How to critique a Schedule F revival

C.Anne Long
latest News

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Lennon Wesley III
15h

Ranked choice voting won election day 2023

Ashley Houghton
Deb Otis
15h

Could George Santos torch the House by vacating the Speaker

Kevin R. Kosar
15h

Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

David Levine
Louis Savoia
28 November

How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

Jay Evense
28 November

Podcast: America’s political orphans

Our Staff
28 November
Videos
Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Our Staff
Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Our Staff
Video: The power of young voices

Video: The power of young voices

Our Staff
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Lennon Wesley III
15h

Podcast: Dr. F. Willis Johnson in a rich conversation with Patrick McNeal

Our Staff
14 November

Podcast: Better choices, better elections

Our Staff
23 October

Podcast: Are state legislators really accountable to their voters?

Our Staff
06 October
Recommended
Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Podcasts
Ranked choice voting won election day 2023

Ranked choice voting won election day 2023

Big Picture
Could George Santos torch the House by vacating the Speaker

Could George Santos torch the House by vacating the Speaker

Big Picture
Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

Contributors
How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

Big Picture
Podcast: America’s political orphans

Podcast: America’s political orphans

Big Picture