Researchers debunk myths about ballot collection on Indian reservations
A study by the University of Utah’s College of Social & Behavioral Science reveals that ballot collection on Native American reservations effectively lowers voting barriers without evidence of vote fraud.
Ballot collection is a system by which voters rely on third parties to collect and submit their absentee or mail-in ballots. Distances, poor mail service, bad roads and lack of transportation mean that Native Americans on rural reservations rely more on ballot harvesting than other voter blocs.
Despite its benefits, ballot collection faces opposition and restrictions in several states, including Utah, where it has been banned. Critics argue it is vulnerable to fraud, though the study finds no documented cases of such issues.
A father-son pair of researchers analyzed data from the conservative Heritage Foundation. They found that voter fraud related to ballot collection is extremely rare, occurring only in 0.00006% of votes cast – that is, six cases of proven fraud for every 10 million votes cast in the U.S.
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Aerial photo of Chemawa Indian School north of Salem, Oregon, one of four federal Indian residential schools still in operation.
Child rights advocate: boarding school abuses continue globally
The U.S. Department of the Interior recently released the second volume of its investigation into the federal Indian boarding school system, revealing that at least 900 Native American children died in these schools after having been forcibly separated from their families, communities and cultural heritage.
An editorial in The Hill this week argues that residential schools, including modern orphanages and children’s homes, still cause harm across the world today.
“Residential education in many cases fulfills the definition of an institution and causes similar harm to children,” writes contributing author and British child rights advocate Enrique Restoy. “Children in residential facilities face an increased risk of abuse and often have a damaged sense of belonging and emotional health.”
Adding to the problem, Restoy says boarding schools are typically regulated by government ministries of education and often located in remote locations without proper oversight, which “intrinsically lends itself to students enduring abusive practices of various kinds from staff, including emotional, physical and sexual abuse.”
The writer calls for a shift in support towards keeping children within their families while providing education, rather than separating them for care and schooling.
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This 1865 photograph shows French missionary Eugene Casimir Chirouse (left) and an unidentified priest standing with students at the Tulalip Mission School, Tulalip, Washington.
Clergy want role in boarding school truth and reconciliation process
In a related story, as Congress considers legislation that would create a federal commission to address the trauma from Native American boarding schools, U.S. Catholic bishops are calling for an amendment that would allow religious communities a role in the process.
The proposed Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act would set up a commission and various advisory committees to investigate and acknowledge past injustices at these schools. The bishops argue that since many of these schools were run by Catholic and Protestant groups representatives from these religious communities should also be included.
The bishops' letter, sent on July 25 to key congressional sponsors and signed by several high-ranking church officials, stresses that including religious communities is crucial for comprehensive healing and reconciliation. They also advocate for voluntary cooperation rather than broad subpoena powers, as they claim to have already been transparent and cooperative.
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Cheyenne Arapaho author Tommy Orange reads from his novel "There There," at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, Mystic, CT, June 8, 2018.
Cheyenne Arapaho writer honored as part of unique literary project
Native American author Tommy Orange has already begun thinking about a new novel that none of us will live to read.
Orange, a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma born and raised in California, has been selected as the next writer for the Future Library Project (FLP).
An initiative launched by Scottish artist Katie Paterson in 2014, FLP aims to collect an original work by a popular writer every year for a century. The works will remain unread and unpublished until 2114, when they will be printed on paper made from trees the artist planted in Norway a decade ago.
Orange is the author of two novels exploring urban Native American identity. His 2019 debut novel “There There,” an examination of urban Native identity, earned him a Pulitzer nomination; his follow-up novel “Wandering Stars,” is on this year’s Booker Prize longlist.
He tells the Guardian newspaper that being involved in the Future Library means he still has hopes “that we will have a world to live in with books in it in a hundred years, or 90 I guess, and I think I need to keep that hope alive, need to actively cultivate that kind of hope in the longevity of the human project.”
Orange isn’t sure what kind of book he will write for the FLP and wonders what kind of reception it will get from critics in the 22nd Century.
“I think it’s a little scary writing for people who will most definitely deem us stupid and inferior in many ways just as when we look back a hundred years, we can see clearly all the problems we had just being decent human beings,” he said.
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