Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Native Americans punished by new Montana ballot rules, suit says

Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Montana

Montana has seven rural reservations, including the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. They have limited access to mail service, making it difficult to vote.

Holger Leue/Getty Images

Montana's new restrictions on the handling of mail-in ballots illegally discriminate against Native Americans and will suppress their turnout this fall, the American Civil Liberties Union and five tribes alleged Thursday.

They filed a lawsuit asking a state court to strike down a measure approved by voters in 2018 and just now taking effect. They say new curbs on who may collect others' ballots, and how many, effectively disenfranchise Native Americans who live in remote areas without home mail delivery.

It is the newest front in the fight for voting rights across Indian Country, coming a month after the settlement of a legal battle allowing North Dakotans living on reservations to cast ballots even without complying with the state's restrictive voter ID law.


Voting rights advocates and Democrats generally favor permissive rules about party operatives or neighbors collecting the absentee or vote-by-mail ballots of others and delivering them to local election offices. They say that boosts civic participation by the elderly and people in remote areas. But Republicans say the practice known as "ballot harvesting" is ripe for vote fraud — and, in fact, a do-over was ordered in 2018 in a North Carolina congressional district amid evidence the GOP candidate's allies had abused the system.

In Montana, where most voting is done by mail ahead of Election Day, 63 percent of voters approved new rules, proposed by the solidly GOP Legislature two years ago, including a cap of six ballots that can be dropped off by one person and a requirement that the person dropping off the ballots complete a registry form, with a $500 penalty for violations.

That "ignores the everyday realities that face Native American communities," Jacqueline De León of the Native American Rights Fund said in a statement announcing the suit. "It is not reasonable to expect voters to drive an hour to drop off their ballot, so collecting ballots in reservation communities just makes sense."

Six percent of the state's population identifies as American Indian. There are eight tribes and seven very rural reservations, with a combined population of 70,000 who have limited access to mail service and high poverty rates, meaning long drives can be a hardship.

The suit says that two Native American advocacy groups in the state have been assigning their canvassers to collect an average of 85 ballots each in recent election.

Montana is among the last states with a presidential primary, on June 2. It is colored a relatively deep red on the November presidential map, President Trump having carried it by 20 points last time, although the Democrats are bullish in picking up an open Senate seat since Gov. Steve Bullock changed his mind this week and decided to go after it.

Also, the census is expected to show enough recent population growth in Montana to give it a second House seat for the coming decade, and demographics plus the presence of an independent redistricting commission mean that new district will likely tilt blue.

Read More

The Sanctuary City Debate: Understanding Federal-Local Divide in Immigration Enforcement
Police car lights.
Getty Images / Oliver Helbig

The Sanctuary City Debate: Understanding Federal-Local Divide in Immigration Enforcement

Immigration is governed by a patchwork of federal laws. Within the patchwork, one notable thread of law lies in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The Act authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) programs, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to work in tandem with local agencies and law enforcement on deterrence and enforcement efforts. Like the now-discontinued Secure Communities program that encouraged information sharing between local police agencies and ICE, the law specifically authorizes ICE to work with local and federal partners to detain and deport removal-eligible immigrants from the country.

What are Sanctuary Policies?

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump Slams Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians Over Name Changes

President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Trump Slams Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians Over Name Changes

Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump has reignited controversy surrounding the Washington Commanders football team, demanding the franchise revert to its former name, the “Redskins,” a term widely condemned as a racial slur against Native Americans.

In a series of posts on Truth Social this past weekend, Trump declared, “The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team.” He went further, threatening to block the team’s $3.7 billion stadium deal in Washington, D.C., unless the name change is reversed.

Keep ReadingShow less
Media criticism
News media's vital to democracy, Americans say; then a partisan divide yawns
Tero Vesalainen/Getty Images

Public Media Under Fire: Why Project 2025 Is Reshaping NPR and PBS

This past spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part, nonpartisan series examining Project 2025—a sweeping policy blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. Our analysis explored the proposed reforms and their far-reaching implications across government. Now, as the 2025 administration begins to take shape, it’s time to move from speculation to reality.

In this follow-up, we turn our focus to one of the most consequential—and quietly unfolding—chapters of that blueprint: Funding cuts from NPR and PBS.

Keep ReadingShow less
Person voting

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

Hill Street Studios/Getty Images

New York City’s Ranked Choice Voting: Democracy That’s Accountable to Voters

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

Heads turned when 33-year-old state legislator Zohran Mamdani knocked off Andrew Cuomo, a former governor from one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent families. The earliest polls for the mayoral primary this winter found Mamdani struggling to reach even 1 percent.

Keep ReadingShow less