INFO:Native Americans Weren't Guaranteed the Right to Vote in Every State Until 1962.

[elleng]

Native people won citizenship in 1924, but the struggle for voting rights stretched on much longer.

Do U.S. citizenship and voting rights go hand and hand? For most of the country’s history, the answer has been no—just look at the example of Native voting rights, which weren’t secured in all states until the 1960s.

Native Americans couldn’t be U.S. citizens when the country ratified its Constitution in 1788, and wouldn’t win the right to be for 136 years. When black Americans won citizenship with the 14th Amendment in 1868, the government specifically interpreted the law so it didn’t apply to Native people.

“I am not yet prepared to pass a sweeping act of naturalization by which all the Indian savages, wild or tame, belonging to a tribal relation, are to become my fellow-citizens and go to the polls and vote with me,” argued Michigan Senator Jacob Howard at the time, according to the Native American Voting Rights Coalition.

Some Native people who didn’t want U.S. citizenship since they were already part of their own sovereign nations. However, these nations still found their land and the lives of their people subject to the whims of a country that would not recognize them as citizens. . .

Native Americans were only able to win the right to vote by fighting for it state by state. The last state to fully guarantee voting rights for Native people was Utah in 1962. Despite these victories, Native people were still prevented from voting with poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation—the same tactics used against black voters.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 helped strengthen the voting rights that Native people had won in every state. However, the act is no longer fully intact. In 2013, the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder dismantled one of its key provisions, which required that states with a history of racial bias in voting get permission before passing new voting laws. Just before the 2018 midterm elections, North Dakota’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of a new voting requirement that may prevent hundreds of Native residents from voting.'>>>

https://www.history.com/news/native-american-voting-rights-citizenship

[efhmc]

1. We are really a biased and vengeful nation, aren't we? Still trying to deny people the right to vote

The GQP is working on it even as we write this. Democracy is only for the "right" people.

(Sorry to get off subject: So since women did not have the right to vote until 1920 were they not considered to be citizens until then?)

[elleng]

2. AWFUL!

and at the beginning, had to be white male property-holders.

[ITAL]

3. Technically there is no right to vote

At least not on the Federal level. All the Constitution says in the 15th and 19th Amendments is that race and sex can't be used to prevent states from allowing someone the right to vote - and that was literally the first time it enters the document at all. States were meant from the beginning to be the ones that decided suffrage. Over time that's moved more and more towards universality, but it's one of the big misconceptions that the Constitution grants ANYONE the right to vote. All it does is present some barriers to the states in preventing it.

[Runningdawg]

4. And our religion wasn't legal until 1978.

OKs MAGAts are up in arms this week over several regional landmarks being renamed to remove the offensive slang term for a Native woman's genitalia. They will never change.

[DoUListenWhenUHear]

5. I believe that the ND voting law required

the voter to have a physical address for their voter registration card to be sent to... no PO Boxes would be allowed. Problem is that on many reservations, there are no street names or physical address on record. I lived on the Crow Reservation in Montana. I had a PO Box that my mail went to; but UPS and Fed Ex required physical addresses. My physical address was

"Turn right at the Food Pantry, go past the Baptist Church (yellow) on left, drive behind 4 Square Church (red & brick) on right, in single wide next to RR tracks."

This is what I had to put in the "Shipping Address" anytime I ordered something I wanted sent to my home. ND would not accept this as a legitimate physical address as they want "street names"...actually, all they really want is to keep NA from voting.

[2naSalit]

6. +1

[efhmc]

7. I remeber this from the last election and I also remember that some actual physical addresses were

created for people to use to overcome this problem. Right or not?