TULALIP – David Fryberg Sr. hadn’t voted in years.
Then a decade or so ago, his grandchildren started asking questions. They wanted the Tulalip elder to tell them about the candidates and the issues.
He didn’t know.
So, he said, he found a voter’s guide and started reading. He began to care.
He said he cast his ballot – and hasn’t stopped since.
Tribal leaders in Snohomish County and across the country are hoping more American Indians experience Fryberg’s kind of political awakening. But they aren’t leaving it to chance.
American Indians have lagged behind the general population since they first gained the right to vote in 1924 – four years after women and 54 years after black men.
Now Indian leaders are organizing political rallies and urging tribal members to vote.
They’re also trying more creative techniques.
The Tulalips have rented limousines to escort members to the polls in several past elections. Other tribes have raffled off vacations or invited voters to lavish buffets.
Earlier this month, a Native Vote rally at the Tulalip Amphitheatre drew around 300 Indians from all over the state.
“Our parents and our grandparents did not have a voice,” said Tulalip legislative policy analyst Deborah “Tsi-cy-altsa” Parker. “Today we can have a voice.”
There are no reliable statistics on Indian voting, according to experts. However, people involved in the Native Vote movement say voting is on the rise among Indians nationwide.
Chris Stearns of the Inter-Tribal Economic Alliance in Seattle said tribal members are starting to see how politics affect their lives – from funding health clinics to adding wireless technology on remote reservations.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 103,352 Indians of voting age in Washington, including 9,276 in Snohomish County. Though they make up a relatively small portion of the population – just 2 percent in the state – when they organize and vote together, they can change election results.
In Marysville, for example, voters passed a school levy and their first school bond in 16 years earlier this year, following an intense campaign on the Tulalip Reservation. The levy will fund maintenance and operations costs, while the bond will pay for a new high school.
Tribal members taped a seven-minute program on the ballot issue and aired it on their public television station. Voter registration drives added dozens of tribal members to the electorate, according to Dean Ledford, a Tulalip elder who was active in the campaign.
During the election, managers on the reservation let workers off their jobs early to vote, and limousines hired by the tribes drove voters without transportation to the polls.
The bond passed by just eight votes; the levy, by 23.
“Without (Tulalip) votes, I don’t believe the bond would have passed,” Ledford said.
Data hard to track
The Census Bureau tracks voting and registration statistics for whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians, but not American Indians. Likewise, Washington’s 2004 exit polls included information on white, African-American, Latino and Asian voters, but not American Indians.
That’s because American Indians are smaller in number and harder to track than other racial groups, according to Matt Barreto, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington.
Techniques used to study other minority voters aren’t effective with American Indians, he said.
Researchers analyze exit polls and ballot results in ethnic neighborhoods to learn about voting trends in most minority groups. Indians, however, are spread over rural and urban areas and rarely comprise more than 15 percent of a precinct, Barreto said.
Likewise, selecting ethnic surnames from voter registration lists can be effective with Asian or Hispanic voters, but it doesn’t work well with American Indians because many have surnames indistinguishable from other ethnic groups.
“If you want to know about other groups, we have tons and tons and tons of data,” said Barreto, who studies racial and ethnic politics and minority voting. “But unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of good, reliable data on Native Americans.”
However, there is a general consensus in both scholarly and Indian circles that American Indians don’t vote as much as the general population.
In a study of voter turnout among people of voting age in 172 countries, the United States ranks 139th, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Apathy is commonly cited as the prime reason for the United States’ relatively low showing.
With American Indians, the reasons are more complicated.
Until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 passed, Indians were barred from voting in federal elections.
For a plethora of reasons, many Indians simply chose not to vote.
Some viewed participation in U.S. politics as a danger to tribal sovereignty. Others lacked the required government identification and feared registering with the government would create trouble for tribes. And many focused on tribal politics – voting religiously in tribal elections while ignoring national issues.
“In terms of being part of the process, we really weren’t embraced,” said Stearns, of the Inter-Tribal Economic Alliance. “So we’re really still getting out of the starting blocks to some extent.”
Indian rights protests, such as the 1969 takeover of Alcatraz Island in California and fish-ins in Washington, helped American Indians realize that they could influence government policy.
“All of those things changed the possibilities for us,” said Stearns, a Navajo who is active in the Native Vote campaign.
Leaders make effort
In the past decade, tribal leaders have made a concerted effort to increase their political clout. In 2004, the National Congress of American Indians sponsored a national analysis of its first Native Vote efforts. The study found that progress is coming – albeit slowly.
“Years ago, none of the tribal members were really interested in voting,” said Tulalip Tribes Chairman Stan Jones. “We never thought our vote really counted until we got other tribes together and started coordinating our efforts. We know it makes a difference now, so we try.”
Tribes also started offering incentives to entice members to the ballot box to vote. Though the Tulalips have discontinued their limo service because the county has changed elections to vote-by-mail, the tribe is holding an Election Day pizza party this year. Door prizes, including DVD players, camcorders and a flat-screen TV, will be raffled off. Admission is free, but a ballot stub is required for admittance, said Frieda Williams, the tribes’ community relations coordinator.
The tribes also are hanging posters around the reservation with photos of elders and quotes from them about the importance of voting.
To boost voter turnout, the Quinault tribe on the Washington coast has entered voters in raffles for trips to Reno, Nev., and other destinations. The trips raised ethical issues with some election watchers and the tribe has since stopped offering them, said Grays Harbor Auditor Vern Spatz.
“It was a great incentive and it resulted in very high participation levels, but they were in danger of crossing the line as far as paying people to vote or paying for a vote,” he said.
David Fryberg Sr.’s incentive was more personal.
After he cast his first ballot, he and his grandkids began tracking politicians together. They’d record candidates’ campaign promises and watch to see who followed through.
He spoke with his grown children about the importance of voting and persuaded them to register.
“We try to come into the 21st century with a positive outlook on everything,” he said. “We want to be somewhat in control of our own destiny.”
For Fryberg and American Indians everywhere, voting is part of that destiny.
Herald writer Krista Kapralos contributed to this report.
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@ heraldnet.com.
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