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Monday, May 1, 2006
The Voting Rights Act and Alaska
The Native American Rights Fund, in conjunction with the
National Congress of American Indians, is working with a coalition of civil
rights organizations under the direction of the Lawyers Committee For Civil
Rights (LCCR) to ensure that Congress reauthorizes certain remedial provisions
within the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that are scheduled to expire in 2007. In
preparation for upcoming legislative hearings, NARF prepared testimony and
authored a comprehensive report that was submitted to members of Congress.
This report, the first of its kind, details Alaska’s experience under
the VRA and concludes, rather surprisingly, not only that Alaska should continue
to be covered under the VRA but also that Alaska has never complied with the
current mandate under the VRA with respect to Alaska Natives. The following
is the executive summary to the report, which was authored by Natalie Landreth
of the Alaska office, Richard Guest of the DC office, and Boalt Hall law student
Moira Smith.
General Report Findings
The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) is arguably one of the most important pieces
of legislation ever adopted by Congress. The state of Alaska, which has the
single largest indigenous population in the United States, is covered by
section 5 (the preclearance provision) and sections 4(f)4 and 203 (the language
assistance provisions) of the VRA. Yet, little is known about the impact
of the VRA in Alaska over the past 40 years, including whether state voting
practices or procedures discriminate against minority voters, or how well
the state is complying with the minority language assistance provisions.
“Rural” Alaska is a term of art, qualitatively distinct from
rural Nebraska or rural Montana. As the state with the largest land area and
with the lowest population density of any state in the United States, rural
Alaska includes nearly 200 Native villages and communities that are not accessible
by road. They are only accessible by small propeller plane. The fewer than
300 Alaska Natives who reside in each of these villages still practice their traditional
way of life –
living off the land through subsistence fishing, hunting and gathering. Alaska
Natives are by far
the largest minority population in Alaska, currently making up 19 percent of
the total state
population, with numbers growing in both urban and rural Alaska. Despite certain
gains, Alaska
Natives are still the largest group of the total Alaskan population to live
in poverty, with the
highest unemployment and the lowest level of education.
Voting in rural Alaska can be a very different experience than voting elsewhere
in the country. Voting can involve crossing a river, or asking your grandchildren
to translate for you and explain what is on the ballot. One example is Kasigluk,
a Yup’ik village fifteen minutes from Bethel by air. There, the local
election official announces through a borrowed marine radio that anyone who
wants to vote has to come down to the community center by 11:30 a.m. At 11:30,
she promptly collects the election materials, packs up the single ballot machine,
drives it down to the river by four-wheeler and loads it onto a boat (there
is no bridge) to cross over to the other side of the river to the old village
site where she sets up the ballot machine again at the school. The principal
then announces on the radio that the poll is open. The State Division of Elections
says there are about 150 communities like Kasigluk. It is also important to
note that 24 Native villages did not even have polling places in 2004.
Alaska Natives not only inhabit a unique geographical place, they also possess
a unique political status in the landscape of Alaska. Following the adoption
of the 1971 Alaska Natives Claims Settlement Act (ANSCA) terminating aboriginal
title to lands in Alaska, three different types of Native groups or organizations
emerged in co-existence: (1) 231 federally recognized Indian tribes; (2) 13
for-profit Native corporations; and (3) 12 regional non-profit corporations.
These Native groups intersect with the internal political structure of Alaska,
which is divided into 16 boroughs and one large area referred to as the unorganized
borough (an area encompassing most of the rural Native villages). Those who
reside in the 16 boroughs generally receive their
services through their organized and state-funded regional governments, while
those who reside
in the unorganized borough must generally rely on the local Native village
tribal government for
services.
A History of Discrimination and Section 5 Preclearance
In the early years of the twentieth century, the burgeoning Alaska Territory
passed laws limiting the ability of Alaska Natives to be citizens, to participate
in the political process, and to enter certain public establishments. In
1924, when the U.S. Congress conferred citizenship on “all noncitizen
Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States,” the
Territorial
Legislature responded by enacting a literacy law the next year requiring that “voters
in territorial
elections be able to read and write the English language.” Alaska’s
Constitution, which became
operative with the Formal Declaration of Statehood on January 3, 1959, also
included an English
literacy requirement as a qualification for voting which was not repealed until
1970.
During World War II, the Aleuts were forcibly relocated from their island
homelands and interned in overcrowded “duration villages” with no electricity,
plumbing, clean water or
medical care. After the war, there were still signs in stores and restaurants
that read “No Natives
Allowed” and “No Dogs or Indians.” This history of discrimination
is indicative of why Alaska
is a covered jurisdiction under Section 5 of the VRA.
But continuing attempts by the state to dilute the Alaska Native vote speak
to the need for
reauthorization of Section 5 of the VRA. Following the 1990 census, the state
adopted a
legislative redistricting plan that was harshly criticized on the grounds that
it diluted Native
votes, disregarded the differences between Alaska Native groups, and was prepared
in secret
under the influence of some questionable dealings. A coalition of Native interests
appealed to
the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) imploring DOJ not to preclear the plan
under Section 5 of
the VRA and identified some of the discriminatory components of the proposed “anti-Native”
plan. DOJ requested more information and ultimately declared the plan legally
unenforceable
because of its negative effects on Alaska Native voters. Thus, throughout the
redistricting
process and litigation, the VRA and DOJ stood as the last lines of defense.
Without Section 5
preclearance, retrogressive practices would have been implemented with the
approval of the
Alaska courts.
As a general matter, the 2000 redistricting proceeded without significant
problems. However, three aspects of the 2000 redistricting are relevant to
the need for reauthorization: (1) compliance with the VRA was clearly the driving
force behind several of the State’s new districts; (2) the redistricting
board hired a national voting rights expert whose
report revealed that certain areas in Alaska still have racially polarized
voting; and (3) in the
litigation following the 2000 redistricting, the Alaska Supreme Court set forth
a new standard of
deviation that will require future monitoring by the DOJ.
Finally, in both the 2000 and 2004 elections, the state made significant
changes to its elections laws shortly before the election, including changing
absentee ballot requirements, acceptable forms of identification and polling
places. None of these changes were “precleared” prior to the election
and the state later withdrew some of these changes. While the change of a polling
place may not raise a red flag in most jurisdictions, in rural Alaska it can
have a significant impact on the ability of Native voters to get to the right
poll. In short, the Section 5 preclearance provision has resulted in some important
changes in Alaska’s districts and election laws.
Native Languages and Sections 4(f)(4) and 203 Language Assistance
There are 20 different languages still spoken in Alaska.
The largest groups of language speakers are Iñupiaq (more than 3,000
speakers), Siberian Yup’ik (about 1,100 speakers), and Central Yup’ik
(about 10,000 speakers). Siberian Yup’ik and Central Yup’ik are
particularly important here because they are still the primary language of
many of the villages and the first language that children learn at home.
Maintaining and preserving these languages is critically important to the
Native population because language expresses a culture’s world view,
and is, according to the Alaska Native Languages Center, “the glue
that sticks everything together.”
There is and has always been a significant disparity in educational opportunities
for Alaska Natives, resulting in many Native language speakers having limited
English proficiency
(“LEP”). Beginning in the early territorial days, official government
policy established a
segregated school system, ultimately leading to a boarding school policy that
resulted in the State
of Alaska not building high schools in rural villages. Native students had
to travel hundreds of
miles, sometimes out of state, to obtain a high school education. At the time
the VRA was
extended in 1975, only a total of 2,400 Alaska Natives had graduated from high
school. As a
result of litigation, educational opportunities and graduation rates have improved
for Alaska
Native students. But further litigation has revealed that the state still discriminates,
providing
inadequate funding to rural Alaska schools.
Although Congress amended the VRA in 1975 to remedy the discrimination faced
by language minorities in voting, there is little evidence of compliance with
sections 4(f)(4) and 203 by the State of Alaska in the past 30 years. While
voter registration and turnout appear to be relatively high in Alaska, Alaska
Native turnout is difficult to discern because the State chooses not to collect
racial data.
Although there are no formal barriers to registration such as literacy tests,
there are still barriers. Alaska continues its practice of English-only elections,
adversely impacting the ability of Alaska Natives to exercise their right to
vote. Alaska only provides registration materials printed in English and many
Alaska Natives find the English-only ballot language confusing. Further, Alaska
has a re-registration requirement that disproportionately affects Alaska Natives,
who are the most mobile segment of the population.
In short, Alaska appears to have not complied with its obligations to provide
minority language assistance to Alaska Native voters. The state offers intermittent
oral language assistance and no written assistance for Alaska Natives. While
Alaska seems to provide translators upon request in many places, this reflects
a commitment to fulfill its obligations under state law to assist qualified
voters needing assistance in voting. By contrast, Alaska does provide written
election materials for the 2 percent of the Alaska population that is Filipino.
Thus, Alaska is arguably out of compliance with the VRA and has been since
the mandate was imposed on the state 30 years ago. As Congress contemplates
reauthorization of the language provisions, it should take into account this
non-compliance and the ongoing need for some assistance demonstrated in this
report. Alaska Native voters still experience what the VRA was meant to eradicate
30 years ago.
Related News Stories:
• • Groups push for continued federal oversight of Alaska elections
(Anchorage
Daily News) 3/29/06
• • Reports: Election oversight still needed (News-Miner) 3/28/06
Report:
Voting Rights in Alaska 1982-2006: A Report of RENEWTHEVRA.ORG,
prepared by Natalie Landreth and Moira Smith, March 2006
Press release 8/24/06 - Voting Rights Act Reauthorization
Project
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