Every Saturday, Buffalo Post features stories from Native Sun News, published in Rapid City, S.D.

By Randall Howell
Native Sun News Correspondent

HOT SPRINGS – Shannon County’s commissioners have extended something of an olive branch to Fall River County’s elected officials.

That olive branch symbolizes an effort on the part of the commissioners to settle their growing list of differences with Fall River County, which for years has been functioning as the government infrastructure for the unorganized Shannon County.

With that peace-talk session scheduled for Friday, Sept. 24 [Buffalo Post will update with results of that meeting], early voting – one of the snarls that has tangled county-level government – got underway on Thursday, Sept. 16, according to Chris Nelson, South Dakota’s secretary of state.

Voter disenfranchisement remains an issue, however, given that more than 95 percent of the Shannon County population is American Indian.

Those Oglala Lakota not only live in the country’s poorest county, but also they lack the resources for travel to a polling place – a place that, in this case, is at the Fall River County Courthouse in Hot Springs.

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Tags: Chris Nelson, Fall River County Courthouse, Four Directions, Jim Sword, Marty Jackley, Native American voting, Oglala Lakota, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Shannon County

Every Saturday, Buffalo Post features stories from Native Sun News, published in Rapid City, S.D.

By Randall Howell
Native Sun News Correspondent

RAPID CITY – Sometimes, political candidates do everything right and still lose the general election.

That’s the situation that the only American Indian on this year’s South Dakota statewide ballot has found himself in more than once during his political career.

However, Ron Volesky, an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, doesn’t see himself as a loser at all. If anything, he’s a self-confident “this year” candidate.

“I intend to win the state attorney general’s race on Nov. 2,” Volesky, a Huron-based attorney, told Native Sun News.

“It’s shaping up to be a tough race,” said Volesky, who faces the state’s incumbent attorney general, Marty Jackley, a Republican running in a state that has been dominated by GOP officeholders at the statewide level for decades.

“We’ve got to get the vote out, particularly in places such as the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock – all nine reservations across the state,” said Volesky, who is the Democratic Party’s candidate for the office of the state’s attorney general.

“I’ve got the experience to meet the challenges in that office,” said Volesky, a Harvard graduate. “But I need help from the Indian vote. I ask South Dakota’s Native Americans to empower themselves so that we get a good vote on Nov. 2.”

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Tags: Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, Harvard, Huron City Commission, Marty Jackley, Native American voting, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Ron Volesky, Rosebud Indian Reservation, Shannon County, South Dakota State University, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Tribal Relations Commission

Tuesday’s chat with South Dakota Secretary of State Chris Nelson – hosted Kevin Woster of the Rapid City, S.D., Journal – begins at 9 a.m. on the Mount Blogmore site.

As the Journal‘s Andrea J. Cook reported earlier, voters in Shannon County, S.D. – which encompasses most of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation – cannot cast an early ballot without traveling to Hot Springs in Fall River County or applying by mail for an absentee ballot.

All early voting in South Dakota is done by absentee ballot, her story explains. Nelson told Cook he’s sure voters in Shannon County won’t be disenfranchised. The live chat will give people an opportunity to quiz Nelson further on that question.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Chris Nelson, Gwen Florio, Mount Blogmore, Native American news, Native American voting, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Rapid City Journal, Shannon County, voting rights

New regulation takes aim at fake Native American arts and crafts
“Falsely suggesting goods are Indian- or Alaska Native-made could be harder to get away with now that Congress has approved changes to the 1990 Indian Arts and Crafts Act,” Associated Press reporter Sue Major Homes writes. The revisions are part of the Tribal Law and Order Act, and expand the number of agencies that can investigate suspected violations.

First Nations leaders heading for Washington, D.C., to protest tar sands development
Tomorrow, a number of First Nations leaders from Canada will meet with officials in Washington, D.C., “to persuade officials to reject a pipeline project they say would pump more ‘dirty oil’ from Alberta into the United States,” the Canadian Press reports. “Francois Paulette, of the Smith’s Landing Treaty 8 First Nation, says he wants to talk to U.S. politicians about pollutants from the oilsands.”

One of original Navajo Code Talkers dies
Indian Country today has an Associated Press story reporting the death of Allen Dale June, one of the 29 original Navajo code talkers who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language, has died. He was 91, and died of natural causes at a veterans hospital on Sept. 8, according to the story.

Thousands take part in annual Trail of Tears Motorcycle Ride
Actually, make that tens of thousands, according to Trevor Stokes of the Times Daily in Alabama’s Tennessee Valley. The ride memorializes the forced, deadly relocation of Cherokee people who lived east of the Mississippi River in 1838.

Early voting on Pine Ridge Reservation faces roadblocks
The issue actually involves Shannon County, S.D., but of course that’s where the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is located. The Rapid City Journal reports that voters cannot cast an early ballot without traveling to Hot Springs in Fall River County or applying by mail for an absentee ballot. Voting in Shannon County has been the focus of controversy in recent years, especially after 2002, when Democrat Tim Johnson wrestled a Senate race away from Republican John Thune by just over 500 votes – with Shannon County votes being the last counted, prompting allegations of fraud.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Allen Dale June, First Nations, Indian Arts and Crafts Act, Navajo Code Talkers, oil sands, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Shannon County, Smith's Landing Treaty 8 First Nation, tar sands, Trail of Tears, Trail of Tears Motorcycle Ride, Tribal Law and Orer Act, voting rights

Shannon County, S.D., home to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, typically gets noticed for being one of the poorest counties in the nation. However, in election years, there’s a different focus – the county’s generally Democratic voting bloc can swing a close race. Past years have featured allegations of election fraud. This year, the U.S. Justice Department is trying to ensure things go smoothly – and fairly. Here’s the entire story from the Associated Press:

The federal Justice Department says it has reached an agreement with South Dakota’s Shannon County to help Native American voters.

The agreement requires the county to provide election materials and information in Lakota for voters who speak that language, and to have trained bilingual election officials at polling sites.

The agreement also ensures compliance with various other provisions of the Help America Vote Act, which is aimed at helping minority voters in jurisdictions determined by the Census Bureau to have a substantial population of minority-language residents.

Shannon County includes much of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Four of the five county commissioners are members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

Tags: 2010 elections, buffalo post, Gwen Florio, HAVA, Help America Vote Act, Lakota, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, S.D., Shannon County, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Justice Department