Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Electoral inequality for Native Americans detailed in expansive study

Native Americans and Sen. Jon Tester

A new report outlines numerous obstacles to voting faced by Native Americans. Sen. Jon Tester (right) is one of several politicians cited in the report who say Native voters were critical to their victories.

Tom Williams/Getty Images

The title of an expansive new report on Native American voting rights, "Obstacles at Every Turn," is no exaggeration in light of the document's contents.

The report, written after nine public hearings over two years featuring 120 witnesses, presents a stark look at the barriers faced by the nearly 5 million American Indians of voting age. It also makes clear that many of them will be effectively disenfranchised if the country embraces voting by mail at the expense of in-person polling places.

"The first people on the land should not be the last to vote," concludes the study by the Native American Rights Fund, which advocates for better treatment for tribal members by the federal and state governments.


Most of the 176-page report, released Thursday, is devoted to detailing an array of 29 obstacles, which are based on the general conditions of reservation life but also involve barriers that touch on all aspects of participating in elections — from registering to casting ballots to having those votes counted. These include:

  • Isolation. Tribal members often live many miles away from tribal facilities let alone the county offices that offer registration and control voting.
  • Bad housing. Homlessness and housing instability are pervasive on reservations and other tribal lands but also among Native Americans living in urban areas.
  • Low tech. More than 90 percent of tribal land lacks broadband internet, meaning little access to online registration or information about voting and elections.
  • No addresses. Many reservations don't assign traditional addresses, with named streets and numbered homes, which makes it difficult for tribal members to receive and return mailed ballots.
  • Limited IDs. Many in Indian Country find it tough to get the identification cards that smooth voting. State motor vehicle and other offices are rarely located near reservations and the cost of an ID card may also be too high for a population disproportionately in poverty.

In addition to all these reasons, the report said, Native Americans are reluctant to embrace the system because of cultural, historical, socioeconomic and language barriers. In general, they have the ear of civil rights groups and liberal lawmakers, who say maintaining in-person options is crucial to preserving the rights not only of native people but also other non-English speakers, the disabled and homeless.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The report states that only 66 percent of eligible Native Americans are registered to vote, leaving about 1 million unregistered.

But even in these reduced numbers, the report notes that Native American votes are often critical in elections across the Southwest and in Alaska and the Dakotas.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester Montana are among the politicians cited in the report who have credited Native Americans as providing the votes decisive to their victories.

The report points to legislation, dubbed the Native American Voting Rights Act, as a key way to address the problems outlined. Companion House and Senate bills were introduced in March 2019 but no action has been taken on either one.

The legislation would expand the places where Native Americans could register and cast ballots, allow use of tribal identification for registering and voting, and require approval for actions such as moving a polling place.

The report also calls for mobile registration and voting stations on tribal lands and calls on tribes to reach out to educate their members on the voting process.

American Indians didn't become U.S. citizens until 1924 but some states, mostly in the Southwest, restricted their eligibility to vote for another four decades — mainly by denying the franchise to people living on reservations or enrolled with tribes.

The report says Native Americans have won or successfully settled more than 90 percent of the voting rights suits they've filed over the years. The most prominent such case, settled in February in North Dakota, allows residents of reservations to register and vote this year even if they don't comply with the state's restrictive voter identification law, which requires voters to have an ID with a residential address.

Read More

Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries
person in blue denim jeans and white sneakers standing on gray concrete floor
Photo by Phil Scroggs on Unsplash

Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries

With the stroke of a pen, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham enfranchised almost 350,000 independent voters recently by signing a bill for open primaries. Just a few years ago, bills to open the primaries were languishing in the state legislature, as they have historically across the country. But as more and more voters leave both parties and declare their independence, the political system is buckling. And as independents begin to organize and speak out, it’s going to continue to buckle in their direction.

In 2004, there were 120,000 independent voters in New Mexico. A little over 10 years later, when the first open primary bill was introduced, that number had more than doubled. That bill never even got a hearing. But today the number of independents in New Mexico and across the country is too big to ignore. Independents are the largest group of voters in ten states and the second-largest in most others. That’s putting tremendous pressure on a system that wasn’t designed with them in mind.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

Getty Images, Grace Cary

Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections

President Trump’s election-related executive order begins by pointing out practices in Canada, Sweden, Brazil, and elsewhere that outperform the U.S. But it is Trump’s order itself that really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen behind. In none of the countries mentioned, or any other major democracy in the world, would the head of government change election rules by decree, as Trump has tried to do.

Trump is the leader of a political party that will fight for control of Congress in 2026, an election sure to be close, and important to his presidency. The leader of one side in such a competition has no business unilaterally changing its rules—that’s why executive decrees changing elections only happen in tinpot dictatorships, not democracies.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand Placing Ballot in Box With American Flag
Getty Images, monkeybusinessimages

We Can Fix This: Our Politics Really Can Work – These Stories Show How

As American politics polarizes ever further, voters across the political spectrum agree that our current system is not delivering for the American people. Eighty-five percent of Americans feel most elected officials don’t care what people like them think. Eighty-eight percent of them say our political system is broken.

Whether it’s the quality and safety of their kids’ schools, housing affordability and rising homelessness, scarce and pricey healthcare, or any number of other issues that touch Americans’ everyday lives, the lived experience of polarization comes from such problems—and elected officials’ failure to address them.

Keep ReadingShow less