White House Report of the Interagency Steering Group on Native American Voting Rights

PDF here. From the White House Fact Sheet:

Since their first days in office, President Biden and Vice President Harris have prioritized strengthening our democracy and taken steps to protect voters from the current efforts to suppress the vote and subvert our electoral process.  The unprecedented nature and scale of the present attacks on voting rights must be met with federal legislation, which is why the President and Vice President have repeatedly called for the Senate to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The President and Vice President have also forcefully called for changing Senate rules to prevent a minority of Senators from blocking action on this fundamental right from which all other rights flow.  

Congress still has the responsibility to act, but the President is committed to using every tool at his disposal to protect the sacred right to vote.  On March 7, 2021, the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, he signed an Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting, directing an all-of-government effort to promote information about the voting process and to further the ability of all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.  That work is ongoing, and agencies will continue to develop ways to deliver non-partisan election information and enable eligible Americans to register and to vote.  

A key provision of the Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting highlighted the unique trust responsibility that the Federal government has for Tribal Nations and Native communities.  In light of this responsibility, President Biden directed the creation of an Interagency Steering Group on Native American Voting Rights, whose mission is to study the barriers Native voters face in casting their ballot and having those votes counted, and to recommend steps to mitigate or eliminate these barriers.  For far too long, members of Tribal Nations and Native communities have faced unnecessary burdens when they attempt to exercise their sacred right to vote.  Native voters often have to overcome language barriers, a lack of accessibility for voters with disabilities, cultural disrespect and outright hostility, geographically remote residences, and persistent poverty — conditions that have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.  State laws and local practices also present too many Native voters with undue impediments to full and fair exercise of the franchise, including barriers in receiving information about the voting process, discriminatory redistricting, and burdens in voter registration, voter identification, voting in person, and voting by mail.

Early coverage from The Hill and the Associated Press.

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