Even though Election Day in the United States has come and gone, efforts to mobilize Native voters continue.
"WeÂ’re much busier after the election than I ever thought we would be," said Alyssa Macy, political development and policy director for the Center for Civic Participation, a new nonprofit organization created at the close of the National Voice project, which ended after the November 2 election. "I thought I was going to have a break, but it has not slowed down."
Macy, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon, participated in the Native Vote Post-Election Conference, hosted by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and National Voice in early December in Washington D.C. The conference brought together about 50 people who had coordinated Native vote efforts around the country to reflect on what did and did not work during the campaign season and plan for the future.
"Native voters turned out to the election polls in greater numbers for this election day than any other in history," said NCAI President Tex Hall.
According to Civilrights.org, since 2000 the Moving America Forward Foundation registered 20,000 new Native voters in Arizona and New Mexico, and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma registered 20,000 new voters. The Tohono OÂ’odham Nation registered 967 people, bringing its total voter population to 4,711.
Indianz.com reports that in South Dakota, eight counties with significant Indian populations turned out a record 67 percent of eligible voters. Shannon County, which includes the Pine Ridge Reservation and is 94 percent Indian, had a 57 percent turnout, a near seven-fold increase from 2002.
In a tight race, South Dakota Republican John Thune beat Democratic Senator Tom Daschle, despite the majority of Indian votes going to Daschle.
"After losing in 2002, Thune acknowledged that his campaign did not reach out to Indian Country," reports Indianz.com. "This time around, he made a concerted effort to visit the state's reservations."
ThuneÂ’s outreach made a difference—percentages of the Indian vote for Thune increased dramatically from 2002, ranging from a five percent increase in Bennet county to a 127 percent increase in Shannon county.
Even those voters whose candidate of choice lost the election were motivated by the power of the Native vote.
"People are realizing that, especially in some districts where Native people constitute 75 percent of the population, why canÂ’t they put a Native candidate in office?" Macy said, adding that both partisan and non-partisan efforts are needed.
One partisan effort in the works is the Indigenous Democratic Network, a political action committee spearheaded by Kalyn Free of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma. Free was the first woman elected as district attorney in southeastern Oklahoma. She ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Congress in November, but managed to raise $1.3 million for her campaign.
"I am happy to share my expertise and contacts," Free said. "This has been a dream of mine for several years."
Indian candidates have no place to go to find support for their campaigns, Free said, and building a successful campaign is hard to do alone. The Indigenous Democratic Network plans to identify, recruit, train, and fundraise for Indian candidates and their staff in local and state elections in the coming years. An internet component to be launched in early February, INDNs List, will profile Democratic Indian candidates across the country.
"I am a Democrat, but IÂ’ll be the first to admit that the Democratic Party gives lip service to advancing minority and womenÂ’s issues," Free said. "Unless we help our own, nobodyÂ’s going to do it for us. We want to identify people who are interested in running for 2006 and beyond, and start mentoring them. We need candidates in a few years to step up and run for federal offices."
Backing from tribal governments and energetic youth involvement lent to the achievements of the 2004 Native vote mobilization, Macy said. But to be even more successful in future elections, the movement needs to further develop its technical and fundraising capacity.
"You can only sustain a voter mobilization effort on volunteer time for so long," she said.
