• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • 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>

South Dakota rejects tribal IDs for voter registration

Geoff West
February 10, 2020
Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota

South Dakota has the third largest number of Native Americans living on tribal lands, representing 8 percent of the state's population.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

South Dakota lawmakers look like they won't be doing anything this year to help American Indians overcome the structural and socioeconomic barriers that have long contributed to their historically low participation in elections.

Last week, the state House rejected a plan to allow Native Americans to use tribal identification cards as documentation when registering to vote. The Republicans in charge in Pierre cited concern that information on the IDs could not be independently verified by the secretary of state's office and could lead to fraud, since the cards are not state-issued and often do not include a mailing address.

The Democrats who made the proposal said it would boost civic engagement in tribal communities, which have some of the most anemic turnout in the state. They also noted tribal IDs are used in dealings with the federal government, including at airport security checkpoints.


The proposal, which was attached to a larger bill changing voter registration rules, would have included tribal IDs on a list of acceptable forms of identification, such as state-issued driver's licenses and Social Security cards.

Voting by indigenous peoples often lags behind other demographics. Heading into the 2018 midterm, an estimated 34 percent of Native Americans and Alaska Natives older than 18 were not registered — compared to 27 percent of non-Hispanic Whites. And American Indian turnout in some states was as much as 10 percentage points below other racial and ethic groups two years ago, according to the National Congress of American Indians, a voting rights advocacy group.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

South Dakota has the third largest number of Native Americans living on tribal lands, representing 8 percent of the state's population.

The Brennan Center for Justice has called the structural obstacles facing Native Americans voters "an often-overlooked crisis in our democracy." Those obstacles include states such as South Dakota that do not recognize tribal IDs for voting purposes as well as a lack of nearby polling locations and drop boxes to return absentee ballots.

A House subcommittee is expected to discuss these structural issues and possible solutions at a hearing Tuesday.

From Your Site Articles
  • South Dakota's ballot petition rules held unconstitutional - The Fulcrum ›
  • Poverty, isolation prevent Native Americans from voting - The Fulcrum ›
  • One step closer to ending Native American voter suppression - The Fulcrum ›
  • Native Americans face many obstacles to voting, report finds - The Fulcrum ›
  • Montana tribes win injunction on vote collection law - The Fulcrum ›
  • Amy Scott-Stoltz works to end partisan gerrymandering in SD - The Fulcrum ›
  • Reflection Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev F Willis Johnson - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Voting-Age Population: South Dakota ›
  • Voting: South Dakota Secretary of State ›
  • The State of Native American Voting Rights | Brennan Center for ... ›
  • Voter Identification Requirements | Voter ID Laws ›
voter identification
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

We’ve expanded the Supreme Court before. It’s time to do so again.

Anushka Sarkar

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Debilyn Molineaux

Caught in a draft

Lawrence Goldstone

Congress shows signs of bipartisanship with retirement benefits bill

Mario H. Lopez

Fair representation: More Black people needed in STEM today

Jennifer Stimpson

First instincts, second thoughts

Debilyn Molineaux
latest News

Democratic senators seek $20 billion in election funding

Reya Kumar
2h

Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Our Staff
11h

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Reya Kumar
18 May

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Our Staff
18 May

Supreme Court continues to chip away at campaign finance laws

David Meyers
17 May

Podcast: Depolarizing America

Our Staff
17 May
Videos

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirstFriday Yap Politics

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
​Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Democratic senators seek $20 billion in election funding

Government
Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Leadership
Supreme Court expansion protest

We’ve expanded the Supreme Court before. It’s time to do so again.

Judicial
North Carolina primary election workers

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Leveraging big ideas
Memorial for victims of Buffalo shooting

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Media