Report: Significant Barriers to Native American Voting Rights in South Dakota Persist
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 5/18/2006
South Dakota has been the "battleground" for Native American voting rights for more than 30 years, according to a new report on voting rights in the state.
Since 1966, 17 of the 66 voting rights lawsuits involving Native Americans were filed in South Dakota, a state where only 8.3 percent of the population is Native American. A RenewtheVRA.org report, Voting Rights in South Dakota, 1982-2006, suggests that such a high rate of lawsuits stems from a poor enforcement of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act 1965 (VRA).
"People disenfranchised by discrimination must be assured that their right to vote is unalienable and protected," said former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D. S.D., about the report's findings.
Until the 1940s, Native Americans were officially excluded from voting and holding office. South Dakota's nine federally recognized Native American tribes are still placed at a significant socio-economical disadvantage and encounter barriers to voting.
Moreover, as late as 1975, the state excluded Native Americans from voting in elections in three "unorganized' counties - Todd, Shannon and Washabaugh - because of their large Native American population.
Because the state has not fully complied with the provisions of the VRA, Native Americans still do not enjoy fair representation in South Dakota's government. Since the VRA was amended to include Native Americans in 1975, only seven have served in the state legislature.
The VRA requires two counties, Shannon and Todd, to submit election changes to the Department of Justice (DOJ) before enactment. However, out of 600 statutes and regulations enacted between 1976 and 2002, fewer than 10 were submitted to the DOJ for review.
South Dakota is also required to provide language assistance in 19 counties. But according to Steve Emery, VRA plaintiff and attorney for the Standing Rock tribe, "the state and subdivisions have never produced a single document in the Lakota language explaining the ballot or the voting process."
The VRA, largely considered the most successful civil rights legislation ever enacted, prohibits discrimination based on race.
Three key provisions will expire in August 2007 if Congress does not act now to renew them: Section 5, which requires preclearance of voting changes in states and localities with a history of voting discrimination, Section 203, which require counties where more than 5 percent of citizens are not native English speakers to provide language assistance, and Sections 6-9, which authorize the Department of Justice to send federal examiners and observers to monitor elections.
A bicameral bill, HR 9/S 2703, introduced on May 2, would reauthorize these provisions for another 25 years.
RenewtheVRA.org is a collaboration of national organizations with strong experience protecting minority voting rights, which includes such groups as the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the NAACP and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, ACLU, and Asian American Justice Center.
