Since its impossible to ignore or not think about the #Election2020 today, I thought I’d do a little on the Native American Vote, an often-over-looked population of 5.2 million people who contribute to the electorate #NativeVote2020 #Vote2020 #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth

It should be mentioned that citizenship wasn’t available to Native Americans until at least 1890 when the Indian Naturalization Act of 1890 allowed AI/ANs to **apply** for citizenship. Caveat being that obtaining citizenship didn’t include the right to vote #NativeVote2020

The American Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 **technically** gave AI/ANs the right 2 vote as US Citizens, but limited state enforcement, disenfranchisement & discrimination against Native Americans made it essentially impossible for them to vote in elections #NativeVote2020

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 created provisions to prevent racial discrimination in voting in jurisdictions where there had been aggravated histories of discrimination, but did not include many areas, like AZ & SD, where Latinos, Asians, & AI/ANs experienced discrimination

A 1975 Civil Rights Voting Commission Report showed the denial of the right to vote was occurring among AI/ANs and Latinos in South Dakota and Arizona – and that discrimination was as equally egregious against AI/ANs, Asians, & Latinos as it was against Black voters

An Amendment to the Voting Rights Act in 1975 by Ford included language explicitly including Latinos, Asians, and Native Americas to be protected from voting discrimination, and we have been voting ever since!
#NativeVote2020

Nice summary here by the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/16/native-americans-voting-rights-mail-in-ballots-us-elections