Last week the Supreme Court upheld a North Dakota voter ID law that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said will cause “irreparable harm” to Native Americans voting this November.
Days later at a town hall, Kevin Cramer glossed over these concerns, saying, “there’s not another place in America where it’s easier to vote than North Dakota.”
The law requires voters to provide a form of identification that includes a current street address. Many Native Americans who live on reservations or in rural areas use P.O. boxes, not street addresses. And with the election one month away, Standing Rock External Affairs Director Danielle Finn said it is not possible to satisfy the new requirement.
Cramer does not seem to share these concerns. At the town hall, he went on to say, “If I was the chairman of a tribe and I was concerned about this, I would make sure that my tribal members got an ID from my tribe if they don’t have a driver’s license.”
Watch Cramer gloss over voter concerns here:
This isn’t the first time Cramer has shown indifference to Native American voting concerns. The “VOTE” page on Cramer’s campaign website omits vital information for Native American voters. Cramer’s voting guidelines fail to specify that backup documentation for an ID that lacks a current address can be issued by a tribal government, not just by a federal, state, or local government.
Published: Oct 15, 2018