Tribal leaders in North Dakota are uniting to fight against efforts by the state's Republican-controlled government to disenfranchise reservation voters in an attempt to continue GOP control of the United States Senate, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported Wednesday.
Maddow reported that her news team had spent all week going back and forth with the Secretary of State's office, trying to get a firm answer as to whether a plan from the tribes to issue official tribal letters at polling places would be accepted by the state.
All Maddow could get as a commitment was "probably."
But the tribes are not waiting to implement their plan.
Citing an "exclusive" statement, Maddow explained how tribal sovereignty will be used on reservations to ensure Native Americans are able to vote.
"We stand united against North Dakota's suppressive voter ID law," the statement read.
"We believe the requirement of a physical residential property with a street address was intended to disenfranchise Native American voters," the statement charged. "To combat the disenfranchisement of our members, we intend to ensure our members that lack residential street addresses can obtain them, so they may exercise their right to vote."
"Tribes are now able to issue tribal documents that contain the voter's name, birth date and current street address in North Dakota. We intend to issue these documents at polling locations within the bounds of our reservations on Election Day," the statement noted.
"We encourage all tribal people to come out and vote on November 6th even if you do not have a qualifying ID," the statement urged. "We will not be silenced by the attempts to rob our people of our voice."
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