For help on Election Day, contact 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683), Native American Rights Fund election protection volunteers will be available to assist voters in Indian Country. You can also contact NARF anytime with voter concerns by email: vote.narf.org. Access NARF’s voter election guide here.

Kadin Mills
ICT

WASHINGTON — Voters nationwide have already started to cast their ballots for the 2024 general election. Two key swing states in the Nov. 5 election are Wisconsin and Michigan. Both have large Native populations that could decide the outcome of several key races.

In Michigan, there are nearly 242,000 Native peoples, according to the 2020 Census data for American Indians and Alaska Natives alone and in combination. The state has 12 federally recognized tribes. Wisconsin is home to 11 tribes, and about 147,000 Natives, according to 2020 Census data.

Early in-person voting in Wisconsin begins Tuesday, Oct. 22., and statewide in Michigan on Saturday, Oct. 26. Municipalities in both states offer even earlier voting, such as Detroit, where polling locations opened for early voting on Saturday, Oct. 19. Voters in both states are able to register to vote on election day.

Organizers say getting Native peoples to the polls now and on election day could decide the outcome of the presidential election.

In 2016, former Republican President Donald Trump won Michigan to Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton by a margin of 27,257 votes in Wisconsin and just 11,837 votes in Michigan. The two states, along with Pennsylvania, effectively decided the election. Again in 2020, Wisconsin’s electoral votes were decided by a razor thin margin, going to President Joe Biden by little more than 20,000 votes.

Judith LeBlanc says it is critical Native people show up to vote this November. “When our communities come out and vote, that counts,” she said. “Elections are a snapshot of our political power — our voice on the ground.”

LeBlanc, Caddo Nation, is the executive director of the Native Organizers Alliance, a grassroots organization that sprouted in 2010 to mobilize Native people around the Affordable Care Act and permanent reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

She says Native peoples across the country have the potential to have a serious impact on the U.S. political landscape. “In this political moment when we do have the electoral college, there are seven states in which the Native vote is the swing vote.”

Wisconsin and Michigan are two of those states, as well as Minnesota, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Washington. There is also potential for Native voters in states like Montana to influence congressional races, such as Jon Tester’s.

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While many people may feel disillusioned by electoral politics, LeBlanc says Native organizing during and in between election cycles is imperative to electing both Native candidates and strong allies.

“Representation is critical, but it is not a destination,” she said. “It allows for us to organize and have people on the other side of the table who understand our realities and who will pay attention to what our communities need.”

Maria Haskins is a manager and organizer with Wisconsin Native Vote, a nonpartisan organization that focuses on voter education across tribal communities in Wisconsin. She is a descendant of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.

Haskins says advocates are pushing to provide necessary education about voting. They are hoping to engage a key age group — 18 to 30 year-olds — one organizers like Haskins worry are feeling unmotivated. “The more we push education, the more people are prone to go to those polls,” she said.

Haskins said she wants people to feel comfortable and informed when it comes time to step into the ballot box. Wisconsin Native Vote accomplishes this by meeting with communities and holding events across the state encouraging civic engagement, including listening sessions, visits to tribal colleges and universities, and what Wisconsin Conservation Voices called “the largest Native tailgate ever” at a Milwaukee Brewers game in August. They also do traditional door knocking, tabling and phone banking.

Many tribal communities in both Wisconsin and Michigan are very rural, which for Natives, can also pose a barrier to the polls. “There’s a lot of homes that have the fire numbers for the address,” Haskins said. Fire addresses, or rural address signs, are address signs used to help identify properties during emergencies in rural areas. These nonstandard addresses have caused some discrepancies with voter registration rolls, she said.

Some voters are also unable to make it to polling locations on election day. Others are unable to register due to low access to government agencies that provide registration, according to a report from the Native American Rights Fund.

Haskins said Wisconsin Native Vote is working with the Native American Rights Fund to safeguard voting rights. She also said they have had to combat some misinformation about who is allowed to vote.

“We want people to know their rights,” she said. This includes making sure people know where polling places are located, that tribal issued identification is valid at polling locations, as well as making it clear convicted felons in Wisconsin can still vote.

Both states allow residents to present tribal identification at polling locations. Wisconsin also accepts expired IDs issued by tribal governments, as long as they have expired after the previous general election on Nov. 8, 2022. Michigan accepts tribally issued IDs as well, but requires voters to sign an affidavit if their ID does not display a photo.

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She recalls one gentleman who lamented he couldn’t vote because he had a prior conviction. Haskins told him, “No, you can vote! As long as you’re done serving your sentence and done being on probation, you can definitely vote.”

In Wisconsin, the right to vote is restored for all felons after the completion of their sentence, including parole and or probation. In Michigan, the right to vote is restored immediately after release from jail or prison.

Other states across the country have implemented stricter laws around identification and address requirements. In a September interview with ICT, Jacqueline De León said these barriers are effectively a modern-day literacy test. De León is Isleta Pueblo and she is a senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund.

“The truth is,” LeBlanc said, “if voting was not valuable, why do they spend so much time trying to take our right to vote away? Why?”

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