Native Americans overcome North Dakota's restrictive voter ID laws, turn out in record numbers
Turnout was high, but ID confusion, distant polling places, and even accusations of a conflict of interest worked against these voters.
DANIELLE MCLEAN
NOV 8, 2018, 10:04 AM
FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA — In a unified effort to rebuke North Dakota’s restrictive voter ID laws and defend their right to vote, the state’s Native American population showed up to the polls in record numbers on Tuesday.
Voting advocacy groups and tribal leaders worked overtime, down the wire, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get Native voters the tribal IDs needed to successfully cast a ballot — despite a controversial and restrictive state ID law that made it more difficult for them to vote.
Judith LeBlanc, a Caddo Tribe member and director of Native Organizers Alliance, helped organize an aggressive get-out-the-vote campaign in Standing Rock. She and other activists knocked on doors in the blistering cold throughout the reservation in the two weeks leading up to Election Day and on Tuesday, bused voters to the polls.
People on Standing Rock “believed they had the right to vote and they want to make their right count,” LeBlanc told ThinkProgress. They “exercised their sovereign, civil, and inherent right to vote in this historic election.”
https://thinkprogress.org/native-americans-turned-out-in-record-numbers-to-vote-despite-north-dakotas-restrictive-id-laws-35ad1d116ec9/
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Ultimately, and in spite of restrictive laws that complicated the voting process for them, North Dakota’s Native Americans by and large made a point with high turnout. And community leaders are hoping turnout only goes up in future elections.
“It’s a big deal,” said Semans. “But that significance came from hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tribes to get their people to vote. There was still voter suppression going on, so we could have gotten more. But with all the crap, we are happy with what we got.”
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It hurts to see how they were treated, tried so hard to overcome, and prevailed-- even if unsuccessful in the end with Heitkamp losing. 
and for those like myself that donated to the various sites to help with the registration drive ..............Wado..............Thank you.....................
