There are about 2.5 million Native Americans in the U.S. today. Federally recognized tribes are considered “domestic dependent nations,” that have certain elements of tribal sovereignty preserved while still remaining subordinate to the U.S. and state governments. Out of the many that reside in the reservations, only fifty one percent of the Native American Class graduated in 2010. Due to the rising number of High school dropouts the native population continues to struggle financially and socially. “40 percent of Native Americans who live on reservations are in substandard housing. One-third of homes are overcrowded, and less than 16 percent have indoor plumbing.” (“Julian Brave”) Although some argue that because Native Americans are self-governed
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Some people also just don’t trust voting by mail, and you can not blame them. It’s hard to trust completely an absentee voting system when sometimes very serious mistakes happen, like the time in the 2004 general election when 2,500 absentee ballots were held up at a post office because the Alaska Division of Elections had deposited them at the post office with inadequate postage. It was later discovered that some voters did not receive them in time as a result. National Congress of American Indians research found those people living in the Duck Valley Reservation in Nevada go on average 163 miles just to vote, like residents of the Goshute Reservation in Utah do. Imagine if you had to take a plane to the nearest polling place because you cannot get to it by road, which was the case for several Native communities in 2008, when the state of Alaska attempted a “district realignment” to eliminate polling places in their villages. In an attempt to remedy these problems, the Department of Justice recently proposed the Tribal Equal Access to Voting Act. It would provide polling places at locations of the tribes’ choosing, likely remedying the 100 mile drive for tens of thousands of voters. Some tribes, especially smaller ones of 200-300 people or less, may not have the capacity or expertise to do …show more content…
“Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law.” “Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.” “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop their political, economic and social systems or institutions, to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities.”(“United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People”) It’s these rights that allow them to Self-govern, and in return have additional funding from the government. In most states where the native population is greater, are the likely candidates for the more extensive work done within the reservations, helping the people, and helping the economic growth as not only a reservation, but as a nation
Some people also just don’t trust voting by mail, and you can not blame them. It’s hard to trust completely an absentee voting system when sometimes very serious mistakes happen, like the time in the 2004 general election when 2,500 absentee ballots were held up at a post office because the Alaska Division of Elections had deposited them at the post office with inadequate postage. It was later discovered that some voters did not receive them in time as a result. National Congress of American Indians research found those people living in the Duck Valley Reservation in Nevada go on average 163 miles just to vote, like residents of the Goshute Reservation in Utah do. Imagine if you had to take a plane to the nearest polling place because you cannot get to it by road, which was the case for several Native communities in 2008, when the state of Alaska attempted a “district realignment” to eliminate polling places in their villages. In an attempt to remedy these problems, the Department of Justice recently proposed the Tribal Equal Access to Voting Act. It would provide polling places at locations of the tribes’ choosing, likely remedying the 100 mile drive for tens of thousands of voters. Some tribes, especially smaller ones of 200-300 people or less, may not have the capacity or expertise to do …show more content…
“Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law.” “Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.” “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop their political, economic and social systems or institutions, to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities.”(“United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People”) It’s these rights that allow them to Self-govern, and in return have additional funding from the government. In most states where the native population is greater, are the likely candidates for the more extensive work done within the reservations, helping the people, and helping the economic growth as not only a reservation, but as a nation