Representative Kyle Bailey

On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day, it’s important for us to acknowledge that the right to vote has been a historic–and ongoing–challenge for Native Americans across the United States.

Native Americans were not guaranteed the right to vote until passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924–four years after women secured the right to vote and 54 years after passage of the 15th Amendment.

Until 1958, Utah and North Dakota prevented Native Americans who lived on reservations from voting. Until 1970, Arizona imposed a literacy test that disproportionately disenfranchised Native Americans.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the pre-clearance formula in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Shelby County v. Holder), thus removing a powerful tool to ensure equal access for Native Americans to the ballot in Alaska, Arizona, and in two jurisdictions in South Dakota.

According to the Native American Voting Rights Coalition, Native Americans have the lowest voter participation rates of any racial or ethnic group in the United States today. The contributing issues include:

- Lack of trust in government
- Lack of voter registration information
- Long travel distances to voter registration offices or to polling stations
- Low levels of Internet access and digital disparity
- Outright hostility and intimidation of Native Americans in some places

Additional barriers include:
- Lack of English language proficiency
- Socioeconomic disparities
- Lack of transportation
- Lack of a residential address, and homelessness
- Lack of access to mail

In states with voter ID laws, one or more of these barriers can prohibit some Native Americans from exercising their right to vote.

For those of us who are committed to strengthening democracy and making our union more perfect, there is much work to be done to remedy disparities, oppose suppression efforts, and support reforms like The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, Protect Maine Elections, Maine Citizens to End Super PACs, and Maine Citizens for Clean Elections to empower and give more voice to voters and communities that have been historically underrepresented. On this day, let us renew our pledge to make Maine and America a more perfect union–especially for those whose ancestors called these lands “home” long before many of ours arrived.

Sources:

American Bar Association. “How the Native American Vote Continues to be Suppressed.” Link.

National Congress of American Indians. Archives. Link.

National League of Cities. “Political Participation Among Indigenous People”. Link.

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