A Western Native Voice sign promoting voter registration sits on top of a truck in a field near Poplar, Mont., on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Photo by Christopher Lomahquahu/News21
Louise Smith sits at her daughter’s dining room table on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana, poring over photographs and newspaper clippings — the everyday scraps that weave a tapestry of her 101 years of life.
She revisits the decades she spent as an Indian Health Service nurse; her retirement to care for her husband, Buck, before he died; and how she was named the grand marshal at a parade this year marking the 100th anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act. She rode the route in a convertible clad with a banner that read: “Montana’s Oldest Native American Voter.”
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 took effect nine months after Smith was born, recognizing Native Americans as U.S. citizens and, on paper, extending the privileges of citizenship to them. Yet for decades, states continued to block Indigenous people from voting.
Today, experts warn that some states are once again restricting Native Americans’ access to voting — even as a few, including Nevada, work alongside tribal nations to expand their ability to participate in democracy.
“We’ve consistently been bringing new cases every year,” said Jacqueline De León, a senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), which provides legal assistance to the nation’s 574 federally recognized tribes.
Those cases include a battle to ensure Native Americans in Thurston County, Nebraska, have an equal shot at representation on the Board of Supervisors. And yet another in Arizona, where a judge last year struck down a requirement that voters registering for federal elections provide proof of residency using a physical address. Two Native American communities had sued, noting homes on tribal land often have no addresses.
Some experts blame these recent efforts on changes to the federal Voting Rights Act. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a section of the act that forced some counties and states to get clearance before changing election procedures, a mandate intended to protect against discrimination.
Louise Smith reviews newspaper clippings at her home in Wolf Point, Mont. Photo by Christopher Lomahquahu/News21
Since that ruling, efforts to suppress the vote have increased, said voting rights attorney Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, who directs the Indian Legal Program at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.
“Now you can pass all kinds of laws without being precleared,” she said. “There’s been an erosion of voting rights over time … and it’s really up to Congress to do something.”
In 2021, President Joe Biden directed a steering group to study barriers Indigenous voters face, and this July, a congressional committee published another report that found Native Americans “continue to face persistent and substantial barriers to the right to vote.”
Advocates say the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore needed protections against discriminatory practices. The bill, however, continues to languish in committee.
Montana is home to about 73,000 Indigenous people, constituting 6.4% of the population. Nevertheless, the Republican-controlled Legislature has joined other states in passing restrictive measures that advocates say harm Native American voters.
Dubbed “election security bills” by Republicans, the measures were approved in the wake of unproven allegations of fraud during the 2020 election. One eliminated same-day voter registration; the other did away with third-party ballot collection.
After advocacy group Western Native Voice and several tribes sued, the state Supreme Court in March found the laws unconstitutional, saying they made it “much more difficult … for people living on reservations” to get to a polling place or mail an absentee ballot.
At the time of the ruling, Ronnie Jo Horse, executive director of Western Native Voice, said it reinforced “the principle of equitable access to voting services and the protection of the rights for all voters, especially those residing on reservations where voting barriers are much higher.”
Despite attacks on their voting rights, leaders on the Fort Peck Reservation are focused on getting people to the polls and encouraging the next generation to get more civically engaged.
Smith recalls taking young voters to the polls to encourage them to get involved in democracy and exercise a right their forebearers fought long and hard to secure.
“My friend and I used to take them in her car. Some don’t have rides,” she said, adding that even today, “I visit all my grandkids sometimes when it’s voting time to ask them if they voted already.”
Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board member Wayne Martell has done the same. “You have to go knock on their door, and you have to sit there, and you have to educate them,” he said.
At 72, Martell has long seen how lawmakers and special interest groups create hardships for Indigenous people. He said voting is about giving his people the power to choose leaders who will make decisions in the best interests of Native Americans.
He points to health care as one example.
After COVID-era Medicaid waivers ended, more than 100,000 Montanans — including more than 12,000 with a tribal affiliation — lost health coverage, according to state data. This November, Montana voters will decide their next governor, along with how the state’s Medicaid situation will be handled.
In stark contrast to Montana, Nevada’s 28 tribal nations have made great strides toward making voting more accessible for members.
In 2016, members of the Walker River and Pyramid Lake Paiute tribes filed a lawsuit alleging their constitutional rights had been violated because state and county officials failed to establish in-person polling places on their lands — forcing members to travel up to 96 miles round trip just to vote.
The tribes won — and soon after, the Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada sought additional satellite polling places for nine additional tribes. This November, Nevada tribes will have 16 local polling stations.
“Because of the push from people — not only here on our reservation, but the surrounding Native communities — we’ve been able to create equal voting rights,” said Walker River Chairwoman Andrea Martinez.
That push continued during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it became essential to provide Nevada’s many rural residents — including Indigenous voters — the ability to vote safely.
A law enacted before the 2020 election ensured all registered voters automatically received a mail-in ballot. It also allowed someone other than the voter to turn in a ballot, which advocates say helps disabled and elderly people and other voters who lack the means to get to a polling place.
Those provisions helped increase turnout among Native American voters in the state that year by 25% compared with the 2016 election, according to an analysis by the group All Voting is Local Nevada.
In 2021, the state’s Democratic governor signed a measure making those provisions permanent. Last summer, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo signed yet another bill, requiring the state to allow Indigenous people living on tribal land to use an electronic system to register to vote or cast a ballot.
“Nevada has obviously been responsive to a lot of push by tribal communities to make voting easier,” said Steven Wadsworth, chairman of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, located northeast of Reno.
Steven Wadsworth, chairman of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, stands in front of the tribal offices in Nixon, Nev., during the state’s 2024 primary election. Photo by Christopher Lomahquahu/News21
Stacey Montooth, executive director of the Nevada Indian Commission and a citizen of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, said all of these successes are due to leaders in Nevada — and the nation — recognizing the growing power of Native Americans.
Across the U.S., the Native American population grew by almost 12% from 2010 to 2020, according to census data. As for those who identify as Native American in combination with another race or ethnicity, that population nearly doubled.
“We’re at a point now where plans are not made, policies are not implemented, without someone saying: What about the first people of this land?” Montooth said. “Things are definitely improving, but don’t be fooled. We still have a lot of work to do.”
This report is part of “Fractured,” an examination of the state of American democracy produced by Carnegie-Knight News21. For more stories, visit fractured.news21.com.