Fort Belknap misses election deadline

The Fort Belknap Indian Community missed their deadline to file a proposal to open a satellite election office in their area. Native Americans from those reservations won a legal settlement in June to open the offices and improve access to late registration and early voting.

According to the Associated Press, a dozen plaintiffs from both the Northern Cheyenne tribe and the Fort Belknap tribe argued that they were discriminated against because they had to drive long distances to the county courthouses in order to register late or vote early in elections.

The nearest election office to Fort Belknap is in Chinook, which is about 90 miles round-trip.

Donald Ranstrom, the Blaine County Attorney said the letter requesting a Fort Belknap voting location arrived four days after the deadline and county officials determined that opening an office despite this could counteract the settlement.

“The concern we had, and continue to have, is we spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and money and resources getting to where we got to with this agreement. We weren’t going to allow any argument to be made that ‘by modifying the terms, you’ve scrapped the agreement,’” Ranstrom said.

O.J. Seamans, the executive director of the national Indian voting rights organization “Four Directions” said the county could have opened the offices if they wanted to under the guidelines set forth by the secretary of state. “I believe the county can do it. You can take away their excuse, and it comes down to this: We don’t want Indians to vote,” Seamans said.

The Northern Cheyenne tribe missed their deadline as well. They faxed their proposal to Rosebud County more than a month after the deadline.

Mark Azure, the Fort Belknap Indian Community tribal council chief did not return calls seeking comment.