Democrats Disenfranchise Indians

Want to see what the South Dakota media refuses to print regarding the Indian vote ? Check out this David Yeagley column:

But how exactly did the Democrats win? “The Indian vote,” liberals brag, along with the women’s vote. (Just what Indian warriors like to hear: we’re the same as women.) There are approximately 16,000 Indian voters in South Dakota, mostly Democrats.

But what if an Indian might want to vote differently? Rough goings at the polls, so the liberals themselves complain. But who’s intimidating whom?

Ask Oglala Sioux Indian, Bruce Whalen, who is Shannon County Republican Party Chairman and Poll Watcher for the Pine Ridge Agency. Shannon County, which includes Pine Ridge, has an American Indian population more than 94 percent, so Whalen’s observations are critical.

Whalen watched polls at Pine Ridge Village, the largest community of voters, with three precincts. Whalen is an elected, Republican official, but local Indian papers never asked him for any reports.

In an unpublished letter to the editor (originally sent to Tim Giago, editor of Lakota Journal, June 11), made available to me personally, Whalen cites two incidents of “non-Republican get-out-the-vote workers attempting to fight other people in the polling place.” He notes “non-Republican workers sat directly at precinct election tables giving the appearance of confusing or intimidating voters.” They even escorted voters through the voting process, “even to the point of entering the election booth with the voter!”

It’s all “anti-Indian” voter harassment, according to leftist Ruth Steinberger, well known activist for Indians in the Dakotas. She thinks white people in the Dakotas just don’t want Indians to vote. The implication is that Republicans are doing all the intimidating, because most of the Indians that do make it to the polls vote Democrat. Steinberger’s reports, unlike Whalen’s, do get published in the Lakota Journal or other Indian papers like Native Times, or on activist websites.

The fact that Democrat Indians would harass other Indians who might be voting Republican is not welcome news in Indian media. Democrat Indians aren’t interested in eyewitness reports like Whalen’s. Such reports will never be published in the Indian papers. Only the Democrat complaints are reported when it’s Indian against Indian.