Fort Belknap demands more voter office hours

The Fort Belknap Indian Community Council responded to a letter from the Blaine County Commissioners last Wednesday, saying they want a “fully equal satellite voting office” on the Fort Belknap agency and Hays, rather than one that would be open only two days a week.

In a letter dated January 27, the tribal council said that having such an office that would offer late voter registration and in person absentee voting only on Wednesdays and Thursdays in the 30 days leading up to a federal or state election is “simply a blatant denial of equal access to the ballot box.”

The letter was a response to a Jan 19 letter to the council by the commissioners, offering opening and stafffing an alternate election administrative office on the Fort Belknap Agency on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. if the council met certain criteria, as required by an out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit.

The letter said the Blaine County Commission would be willing to consider opening another such office in the reservation town of Hays on alternate Fridays during the same time period.

Fort Belknap Indian Community President Mark Azure could not be reached for further comment before this story went to print.

Blaine County Clerk and Recorder/Assessor Sandra Boardman said Friday that the commissioners had not yet had a chance to review Fort Belknap’s letter of response.

Neither Boardman nor the County Commissioners were available for comment this morning before this story went to print.

The council’s letter went on to refer to the county’s offer as “the 2/5” solution because it would only offer those living on the reservation and others in the area two-fifths days registration and absentee ballot services afforded to those in mostly white populated areas who can more easily travel to the clerk and recorder’s office at the Blaine County Courthouse in Chinook.

It also said the proposal put forth by the commissioners doesn’t have those alternate election offices open on election day for those on the reservation to access and that the requirement that Fort Belknap indemnify Blaine County for any personal injuries is a violation of the reservation’s sovereign immunity.

The alternate election administrative offices are part of a settlement from a 2012 suit brought against Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch and Blaine, Bighorn and Rosebud counties by plaintiffs from the Fort Belknap reservation, Crow agency and Lame Deer in 2012.

In the suit, Wandering Medicine vs. McColluch, plaintiffs from the three reservations argued that those who live on reservations and wish to register later in the election season or drop off an absentee ballot must travel long distances to their county courthouses, located off the reservations. The plaintiffs argued that the long distances and expenses that those who live on reservations must travel to take advantage of those voter services has the effect of violating their right to vote.

A settlement was reached in 2014 which stipulated that if any of the involved reservations request such voting offices, the respective county must, in consultation with the council, set up offices on the reservation that will be open 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. every Wednesday and Thursday in the 30 days before an election.

Under the agreement, the council is responsible for finding a tribal office and room that would be used as the alternate office, that the facility meet guidelines under the Americans with Disabilities Act, that the room be hard-wired for the Internet, that a lockable door be provided and that the tribe sign an indemnification agreement with the county.

Despite being named in the settlement as a party to the agreement, in their letter, tribal council members denied that they were part of the Wandering Medicine settlement.

The letter said that council member Donovan Archambault, the sole member of the Fort Belknap council involved in talks about the settlement, did not sign the agreement, because he thought it was “gravely unequal for tribal residents on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.”

The council letter also accused the Blaine County government of turning down assistance from an unnamed Native American voting rights advocacy group, which had offered to help pay for on demand voting technology that would allow ballots to be cast in two places simultaneously, and therefore allow Blaine County to perform election administrative duties both at the Blaine County Courthouse and on the reservation.

“This refusal fits Blaine County’s long and continued denial of Native American voting rights that reaches back decades,” the letter said.