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Democratic Senators Call Out the Harmful Impacts of Trump’s Anti-Voter Executive Order and SAVE Act in Indian Country

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Native Vote. Democratic U.S. Senators sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, today calling out the devastating impacts of President Trump’s “election-integrity” promoting executive order (EO) and the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Native American voting rights. 

The letter, led by Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration with oversight over elections, Brian Schatz (D-HI), vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and Ron Wyden (D-OR), warns about the challenges Native communities would face with the new proposed identification requirements and in-person registration requirements.

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The first line of the letter reads: “We write to express our serious concern over the impact of the Administration’s March 25 Executive Order 14284 ‘Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections’ on Native communities.”

“Enactment of new voter registration policies under the Executive Order and the SAVE Act would lead to mass disenfranchisement of eligible Native voters and further depress the Native vote,” wrote the Senators. 

Under Trump’s executive order and the SAVE Act, voters need to provide proof of citizenship when registering or re-registering to vote. In nearly every state, Tribal IDs are an acceptable form of documentation when registering, and many Native voters use their Tribal ID’s to fulfill the current pictured ID requirements when registering or voting. 

However, many Tribal IDs generally lack place of birth information, as required by the legislation, and the vast majority of these IDs lack the specific U.S. citizenship documentation required by the Executive Order. Should the SAVE Act and EO stand, many Native voters would no longer have an acceptable form of identification. 

If Native voters do have an acceptable form of identification that demonstrates citizenship status to the US, they will then have to register in person at the nearest election office or polling place. Unfortunately, this would force Native voters to travel great distances, including costly flights or multi-hour drives.

The Senators called on Secretary Burgum to fulfill his responsibility to uphold established treaty and trust responsibilities to tribal nations. 

“As Secretary of the Interior, you have a special moral and legal responsibility to uphold our nation’s trust and treaty obligations,” said the Senators. “If implemented, the sweeping federal mandates included in the Executive Order and the SAVE Act would disenfranchise eligible Native voters who are following state laws. We encourage your active engagement with the White House and the Department of Justice to ensure that Native communities are able to exercise the franchise fully and have their voices heard at the ballot box.”

Both the EO and SAVE Act implement restrictions on absentee and mail-in-ballots, penalizing states that accept absentee or main-in ballots after Election Day, even if they are postmarked before Election Day. 

Currently only 66 percent of Native Americans eligible to participate in elections are currently registered to vote, leaving more than 1 million eligible voting-age Native Americans unregistered.

Full text of the letter is available here and below: 

Dear Secretary Burgum:
 
We write to express our serious concern over the impact of the Administration’s March 25 Executive Order, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections” on Tribal communities. As former Governor of North Dakota, and now as Secretary of the Interior, you must appreciate that Indian Country faces voting challenges unique to the rest of the country, including remote locations, limited resources, and a legacy of legal discrimination. Unfortunately, both this Executive Order, and the related Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (H.R. 22) recently passed by the House of Representatives, would represent the largest steps backwards for Native American voting rights in many decades. We urge you to ensure that the federal government meets its trust responsibility to safeguard Native American voting rights and to engage in Tribal consultation on any new policies that impact the Native vote.
 
Enactment of new voter registration policies under the Executive Order and the SAVE Act would lead to mass disenfranchisement of eligible Native voters and further depress the Native vote. For example, both the Executive Order and the SAVE Act include a requirement for voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering or re-registering to vote. Tribal IDs generally lack place of birth information required by the legislation, and the vast majority of these IDs lack the specific U.S. citizenship documentation required by the Executive Order. And the SAVE Act’s in-person requirement would exacerbate existing barriers, such as requiring IDs that list residential mailing addresses, by forcing many Native voters to travel great distances, including costly flights or multi-hour drives, to reach their local elections office or polling place.
 
What’s more, under the Executive Order, the Attorney General is directed to take action against states with laws that accept absentee or mail-in ballots received after Election Day. This directive will have a disproportionate impact on Native communities, given the remote locations of many Native communities, along with a general lack of infrastructure and transportation access. As a result, Native voters often must rely on vote-by-mail systems to cast their ballots, but extremely long distances and unpredictable weather can result in mail delays that impact the arrival times of ballots. For example, in states like Alaska, which is home to 229 federally recognized Tribes, voters must rely on mail-in ballots due to the lack of local polling sites in Native villages, the majority of which are not on the road system; in fact, the nearest polling site might be hundreds of miles away by plane or boat. So, it is standard practice for many states to allow ballots to be counted for several days following the federal election as long as they were postmarked before or on election day. Of note, no state allows hand-delivered ballots to be returned after Election Day. If the Executive Order’s provision were enforced, it risks further disenfranchisement of Native voters in states like Alaska, North Dakota, Oregon, and California that accept absentee or mail-in ballots postmarked by the day before Election Day.
 
As Secretary of the Interior, you have a special moral and legal responsibility to uphold our nation’s trust and treaty obligations. If implemented, the sweeping federal mandates included in the Executive Order and the SAVE Act would disenfranchise eligible Native voters who are following state laws. We encourage your active engagement with the White House and the Department of Justice to ensure that Native communities are able to exercise the franchise fully and have their voices heard at the ballot box.
 
Thank you for your attention to this matter and we welcome the opportunity to further discuss these concerns with you.
 
Sincerely,
 

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About The Author
Neely Bardwell
Author: Neely BardwellEmail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Neely Bardwell (descendant of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indian) is a staff reporter for Native News Online covering politics, policy and environmental issues. Bardwell graduated from Michigan State University where she majored in policy and minored in Native American studies.