For Native Americans, a Historic Moment on the Path to Power at the Ballot Box
Court battles playing out over indigenous voting rights have
the potential to tip tight races in states with large native
populations and to influence matters of national importance.
SAN JUAN COUNTY, Utah — In this county of desert and sagebrush, Wilfred Jones has spent a lifetime angered by what his people are missing. Running water, for one. Electricity, for another. But worst of all, in his view, is that the Navajo people here lack adequate political representation.
So Mr. Jones sued, and in late December, after a federal judge ruled that San Juan County’s longtime practice of packing Navajo voters into one voting district violated the United States Constitution, the county was ordered to draw new district lines for local elections.
The move could allow Navajo people to win two of three county commission seats for the first time, overturning more than a century of political domination by white residents. And the shift here is part of an escalating battle over Native American enfranchisement, one that comes amid a larger wave of voting rights movements spreading across the country.
“It’s a historic moment for us,” said Mr. Jones, during a drive on the county’s roller coaster dirt roads. “We look at what happened with the Deep South,” he went on, “how they accomplished what they have. We can do the same thing.”
The county is challenging the decision, arguing that the maps ordered by Judge Robert J. Shelby unconstitutionally consider race, and so discriminate against white voters.
“In one of the poorest counties in the nation, the last thing we need is to be constantly sued by these predatory attorneys,” said Phil Lyman, a county commissioner. “Outside people try to put this into a racial divide that simply doesn’t exist in San Juan County.”'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/us/native-american-voting-rights.html?
= new reply since forum marked as read
'It was not until 1924 that Congress granted native people the right to vote, and for generations afterward, local and state governments have blocked them from doing so, often saying that Native Americans living on reservations were not state residents.'
NOT STATE RESIDENTS! Been there forever, U.S. takes their land, calls it a State, and they're NOT STATE RESIDENTS! 
