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

Judge blocks Montana ballot harvesting law at tribes' urging

Bill Theobald
July 08, 2020
Native Americans

Members of the Crow tribe in Montana, seen participating in a 2018 powwow, are among those who sued over a new law restricting who can pick up and deliver mail-in ballots.

Tom Williams/Getty Images

A Montana judge has blocked new state restrictions on the collecting of others' ballots, a victory for Native American tribes that say their members rely on the help.

The law probably violates the tribal members' right to vote because it would make it especially difficult for them to make sure their own ballots got from reservations and other remote areas to election offices, District Judge Jessica Fehr of Yellowstone County said Tuesday in putting a hold on the requirements.

Her injunction, while not final, is nonetheless the latest voting rights victory for people in Indian Country, who say too many election rules disregard their special circumstances and amount to suppression. It's also the latest turn in the generally partisan battle over so-called ballot harvesting.


The American Civil Liberties Union had sued on behalf of several tribes in March, challenging a state law passed in 2017 and endorsed by statewide referendum the next year. It says caregivers, family members and acquaintances can collect no more than six ballots in an election. Proponents say such limits prevent election fraud by preventing partisan operatives from conducting mass collections of mail-in ballots — potentially from both friendly and unfriendly precincts.

The plaintiffs say that's not what they're worried about. Their seven reservations are particularly isolated and many residents lack cars and are economically strapped — so they rely on others to ferry their sealed ballot envelopes sometimes dozens of miles to either the post office or the local election office.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The law explicitly prohibits independent ballot-collection organizations from helping tribal members cast their mail-in ballots. But without the help, the lawsuit argues, many Native Americans will "be effectively unable to vote."

The judge agreed, emphatically. The law "fails to enhance the security of absentee voting; it does not make absentee voting easier or more effective; it does not reduce the cost of conducting elections and it does not increase voter turnout," she wrote. And it would "significantly suppress voter turnout by disproportionately harming rural communities, especially individual Native Americans in rural tribal communities."

"This decision is a huge victory for voting rights," said Alora Thomas-Lundborg, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. "This ruling removes a major obstacle to thousands of Native Americans in Montana who want to participate in the democratic process and vote free of illegal obstructions."

Among the 27 states where a voter can designate someone to return their ballot, a dozen have placed limits on the number of ballots any one agent can collect and return.

About three-quarters of the state's ballots have been cast by mail in recent years, a share that may only go up because of the coronavirus. Its primary was conducted entirely remotely because of Covid-19, a first.

Montana's three electoral votes are very likely to go for President Trump. But solid turnout on the reservations, which vote reliably Democratic, could help Gov. Steve Bullock's highly competitive effort to unseat Republican Sen. Steve Daines.

From Your Site Articles
  • South Dakota rejects tribal IDs for voter registration - The Fulcrum ›
  • Tribes secure big voting rights win in North Dakota - The Fulcrum ›
  • Poverty, isolation prevent Native Americans from voting - The Fulcrum ›
  • Native Americans face many obstacles to voting, report finds - The ... ›
  • One step closer to ending Native American voter suppression - The ... ›
  • Montana will move toward a vote-by-mail November election - The Fulcrum ›
  • Judge tosses Montana law on naming PACs - The Fulcrum ›
  • 500 dead people on Montana voter rolls, but none voted - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Why no one is talking about the Native American vote in 2020 - Vox ›
  • What keeps Native Americans from voting – and what could change ... ›
  • The State of Native American Voting Rights | Brennan Center for ... ›
  • For Some Native Americans, No Home Address Might Mean No Voting ›
  • How the Native American Vote Continues to be Suppressed ›
native american

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
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Milind Thakar
11h

Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Benjamin Clary
11h

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
11h

Your Take: Religious beliefs

Our Staff
03 February

Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Rabbi Charles Savenor
03 February

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February
Videos

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Our Staff

Video: The dignity index

Our Staff

Video: The Supreme Court and originalism

Our Staff

Video: How the baby boom changed American politics

Our Staff

Video: What the speakership election tells us about the 118th Congress webinar

Our Staff

Video: We need more bipartisan commitment to democracy: Pennsylvania governor

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
11h

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February

Podcast: 2024 Senate: Democrats have a lot of defending to do

Our Staff
02 February

Podcast: Collage: The promise of Black History Month

Our Staff
01 February
Recommended
Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Government
Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Government
Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Podcasts
Your Take: Religious beliefs

Your Take: Religious beliefs

Your Take
Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Civic Ed