WASHINGTON (The Hill) –
Native American rights groups say a host of new Republican-backed bills that restrict or limit common voter registration and absentee ballot practices threaten to disenfranchise thousands of tribal citizens.
Many of the laws that have passed in recent years, driven by Republicans who have used former U.S. president Trump’s false claims about his 2020 loss as cover for a campaign against broader voter access, will take a disproportionate toll on Native American voters, those groups say, because those voters are disproportionately older, rural and impoverished.
“Structural barriers are impacting Native people’s abilities to vote,” said Allison Neswood, a staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund. “We felt like Native issues were being both misunderstood and overlooked at the state level, even by voting rights advocates because our populations can be small.”
Neswood’s group, along with the ACLU and Harvard Law School’s Election Law Clinic, led a challenge to two Montana laws passed by the Republican-dominated legislature earlier this year they said would directly impact the Native American vote.
One measure would have ended same-day voter registration. Another sought to block organizations from paying employees or contractors to collect absentee ballots. Earlier this month, a state court blocked both measures.
The bills proposed by the Republican Party in various U.S. courts largely center around tougher controls on voting by strengthening voter ID laws, shortening early voting in states, eliminating automatic and same-day voter registration, curbing the use of ballot drop boxes, limiting mail-in voting, and allowing for increased purging of voter rolls.
Rights groups say the Republican-proposed bill regarding strengthening voter ID which requires voters’ to show a birth certificate and permanent address to vote will strip some Native Americans of their voting right.
Though Native Americans have been in the United States far longer than there have been in the United States, those born outside of hospital settings, a common occurrence for older generations, may not have a birth certificate.
Many do not know their actual birthdates or have different sets of documents that show different dates of birth.
Also, Native Americans, especially those residing on the hundreds of reservations across the country, may not have a permanent address as specified by the Republican-proposed law.