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- By Native News Online Staff
MADISON, Wisc. — Four Directions, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), and Wisconsin tribes will host a midterm elections forum in Madison, Wisconsin, the state’s capital city, on Monday and Tuesday.
The forum will be held in a town hall format from the Orpheum Theater in downtown Madison. The town hall will provide an opportunity for local and state candidates to engage with issues most important to Native Americans in Wisconsin and across Indian Country.
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate seat, now held by incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), will participate in a panel on Monday. Levi Rickert, Native News Online's publisher and editor, will also be part of the same panel.
An additional civic engagement and voter registration workshop will be hosted by the National Congress of American Indians and held at the Ho-Chunk Nation’s Teejop Hocira located at 4724 Tradewinds Parkway Madison, Wisconsin.
An analysis of the 2020 U.S. census data conducted by the National Congress of American Indians, Four Directions Native Vote estimates there are approximately 91,000 Native Americans of voting age living in Wisconsin, and about 45 percent of the state’s population lives in metropolitan areas.
In 2020, the presidential election was decided by a margin of less than 12,000 voters. As Native voter turnout trends upwards across the country, there is no question Indigenous voters have the power to decide the outcome of every statewide election in Wisconsin.
Watch Four Directions’ co-director OJ Semans, Sr. (Sicangu Oyate) who joined Native Native News Online's publisher and editor Levi Rickert (Potawatomi) on Friday's edition of Native Bidaské. The two discussed the upcoming town hall and the importance of the Native vote in the upcoming 2022 elections on November 8, 2022:
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