FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Matthew Campbell, NARF Staff Attorney (303) 447-8760

North Dakota Voters Appeal to US Supreme Court for Protections

September 27, 2018 (Washington, DC) - On September 27, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), on behalf of its clients, a group of Native American voters in North Dakota, filed an emergency appeal to the United States Supreme Court. They are asking the court to stay a recent Eighth Circuit decision that allows the State of North Dakota to impose new voter identification and residential address requirements in the upcoming election, even though early voting already has begun. Earlier this week, a divided panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit removed a lower court’s order, which was put in to place in April of this year to protect Native American and other voters in North Dakota. The order barred the enforcement of a voter ID law that the District Court identified as discriminatory and unconstitutional. (Read more about the case.) This week’s order from the Eighth Circuit allows North Dakota to begin using the discriminatory new law in the upcoming election. It not only changed the rules of the election after early voting had begun, it created a situation where several thousand people in North Dakota, who are qualified to vote in North Dakota, will be unable to vote in this year’s election simply because they do not have a residential address or because they lack the documentation and/or funds to obtain the required voter identification.

NARF Executive Director John Echohawk stated, “Having a fixed residential street address and being able to pay fees for an ID are not related to an individual’s right to vote. This litigation has been going on since 2016 and the facts are clear: thousands of Native American (and non-Native) voters lack an address or a qualifying voter ID under the new law. With the Court of Appeals' decision, these voters have lost their ability to vote.  And changing the rules of an election, rules which have been in place since April, after early voting already has begun, will do nothing but cause voter confusion and harm to the democratic process. We are calling on the US Supreme Court to protect the voters of North Dakota and stop the state from disenfranchising thousands of Native American voters on the eve of this year’s election.”

Read more about Brakebill, et al. v. Jaeger at the NARF website.

The plaintiffs in Brakebill, et al. v. Jaeger are represented by the Native American Rights Fund, Richard de Bodo of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, and Tom Dickson of the Dickson Law Office.

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About Native American Rights Fund (NARF)

Since 1970, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) has provided legal assistance to Indian tribes, organizations, and individuals nationwide who might otherwise have gone without adequate representation. NARF has successfully asserted and defended the most important rights of Indians and tribes in hundreds of major cases, and has achieved significant results in such critical areas as tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, natural resource protection, and Indian education. NARF is a non-profit 501c(3) organization that focuses on applying existing laws and treaties to guarantee that national and state governments live up to their legal obligations.