Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe election has been decided and incumbent Harold Frazier remains Tribal Chairman. Frazier held on to his office by nearly 120 votes.
Cheyenne River elects three people for positions to represent the entire tribe. At least one representative from each of its six districts is elected to Tribal Council. Remi Bald Eagle is the Intergovernmental Affairs Coordinator for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He says it’s common for incumbents to keep their seats.
“It was a win for all the executive incumbents-they stayed in. The Secretary and the Treasurer. As far as district representatives-it looked like more of the incumbents stayed in with the exception of a couple.”
Bald Eagle says voter turnout for the 2018 tribal election was less than the primary election in August. However, he says the number of absentee ballots filled out before the election was is higher than average.
People running for council can challenge the absentee ballots based on a voters tribal membership, age and residence. Four people were challenged this year, including incumbent Chairman Frazier.
“The official tally had 2,468 votes so that left probably about 500 votes that were still up in the air at the end of election day.”
Bald Eagle says this year, state and national agendas took center stage.
“We had a lot of indigenous candidates for state level representation. There was a lot of that discussion as well as the national issues like the upcoming KXL Pipeline and things like that really drove the constituencies’ concerns. So they wanted to elect leadership that was strong in dealing with national issues like that.”
Each elected tribal official serves a four-year term. The tribal Chairperson appoints a Vice-Chair person who serves a two-year term.
Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe
There’s a new Chairperson for the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe. Ella Roberts won Tuesday’s tribal election by nearly 200 votes. Eight constitutional amendments were brought forth by the community did not pass.
Thomas Lablanc is the Election Board Spokesperson for the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe. He describes this tribal election as the year of women.
“We had one run for chairman, we had one run for vice chairman, we had two for the tribal secretary. So we had a total of six females running. I think that’s kind of a high point to make to our general. And I think that push was all over Indian Country really.”
There are seven districts in the Lake Traverse Reservation. Each votes individually on a district representative for the Tribal Council. All districts vote on three positions--Chairperson, Vice Chairperson and Tribal Secretary. Ella Roberts took the seat of Chairperson and Myrna Thomas is the new secretary. Lablanc says more people turned out to vote for this election than the primary.
“I think it had to do a lot with maybe the state because it was midterm in the state races too and the communities were just pushing to vote, for your voice to be heard throughout Indian Country and I think that was the message everybody was getting.”
Eight constitution amendments were so on the ballot before the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe. A constitutional amendment cannot be passed without a 30 percent voter turnout--and this week’s election reached 23.5 percent.
“Which was 1,968 casted ballots. And we needed roughly 2,506 so we were about a little over 500 short.”
Lablanc says social media played a big role in getting people to the polls. Election officials for the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe saw a large midterm voter turnout.