Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen


Voting in Indian Country, A View from the Trenches

October 13, 2020

We know about voter suppression against African Americans but what about Indigenous Americans, Indians? The effort to disenfranchise the 2% of the national population is not a secret, yet nearly unknown. On this show author Jean Schroedel shares disturbing findings of her ten years of research on reservations. Today Covid 19 is being used to even more effectively deny Indians the right to vote. She says that if one has moved but failed to report it, that person could face five years for voting fraud. And the reality is that fixed addresses for many in Native American communities is not the norm. And as with African Americans, methods are implemented to frighten potential voters. For Indians, the past is ever present in their daily lives. But there is hope for change, new legislation may remove the barriers.