Voter fraud barely exists, yet laws are being passed in states such as North Dakota that do nothing but strip the civil rights of indigenous peoples
Control of the Senate in the 2018 midterms may hang on the fate of Heidi Heitkamp, the right-leaning Democrat from North Dakota. But her victory will be nearly impossible without the votes of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other Native communities across the heavily Republican state. Now, those communities are facing an insidious new threat: voter ID laws designed to strip American Indians of the right to vote.
In 2012, Heitkamp won the race for the US Senate on a razor-thin margin of 3,000 votes. Her path to victory leaned heavily on support from North Dakota’s 46,000 Native Americans, who make up 5.5% of the state population and are a core Democratic constituency across the rural west. In the 2018 midterms, Heitkamp’s re-election strategy – which could determine control of the Senate – relies on this same indigenous demographic.
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