that your officials are going to stand outside, polling stations with laptops with access to rural address software and share a database of voter names. is this how do you plan on executing this? and is this something that you re working with others to execute? well, first of all, thanks for having me, and it s an honor to be on your program today. we re happy to have you. and we are working with many of our tribal officials, we re working with other the other tribes in the states, and we re in communication with the state of north dakota, so we want to we want to just make it possible for everybody to have that right to vote. so we will have i.d. machines and we will have all the information at each poll sites in the turtle mountain area. and how many people would you say this is a problem for? i mean, for folks, our viewers who are watching who may not have a sense of what life is like on a reservation, is this a
voters to provide an i.d. that shows a residential address. and it specifically bans a using a p.o. box. the problem is that many native americans use p.o. boxes for their mailing addresses, as scotus blog writes, quote, native americans often live on reservations or in other rural areas where people don t have street addresses. even if they do, lawyers for the challengers argue, those addresses are frequently not included on tribal i.d.s. north dakota ranks as one of the key senate races that could cost current democratic senator her . na native americans were key in delivering heitkamp s last victory back in 2012, before the state law was passed. joining me now is jamie azure, turtle mountain band of chippewa indian tribal chairman. sir, thank you for being here today. i want to start with the response here, because you have started outlining something of a plan to try to address this on election day. you ve only 19 days left. the washington post writes
problem that most voters who are in this situation will face or just a handful? how big of a problem is it? well, we have quite a few that don t have the physical address on their i.d.s, but we are a sovereign nation, so we have a tribal i.d. the tribal i.d.s are the exact same size, weights, and all the requirements of the state i.d.s of north dakota. so now we just need to get the people out and let them know that the physical addresses need to be on the state i.d.s for state elections and we are going to provide every opportunity for our people to come out and let their voices be heard at that national level and the state level. has the state secretary of state responded at all to this plan? i mean, do you think you re going to face any additional legal hurdles around these i.d.s being allowed for voting? well, at this point, we are
decide control of the senate. a new voter i.d. law is in effect that could disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters. revamping the state s voting requirements. the governor signed the new ball into law in 2017. the law didn t create an i.d. card but instead listed information that needs to appear the person s identification so they can vote, the nail, a residential address and date of birth. pretty standard, right? for north dakota s native population who live on one of the five tribal reservations, there are few, if any, residential addresses. most people there use post office boxes which can t be used as a residential address according to this new bill and that s to say nothing of the homeless native population. here s what the tribal i.d. look like. the cards vary depending on the tribe. some, like internal mountain, north dakota, cost $15. it s a sum that might seem