Some members of the Washington-based Nooksack tribe claim that an election that returned all four incumbents of the tribal council last week was tainted by voter fraud. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has until December 23 to certify the election.
The four seats had expired in spring of 2016 but the council didn’t hold the scheduled election while it went to work to disenroll about 300 members of the tribe that it claimed were not legitimate members.
This resulted in the federal government withholding funds because it didn’t recognize the tribal council as legal. Besides turning off the spigot on tens of millions of dollars, the federal government forced the Nooksack casino to close, refused to recognize the disrenrollments and occupied the reservation health clinic.
Eventually the tribe agreed to hold an election, the casino reopened and federal funds began to flow again.
However, a spokesman for the 300 members who were first disenrolled and then re-enrolled by the federal government claims that many of that group did not get ballots and that some ballots were sent to the wrong addresses. The spokesman, Gabe Galanda, added that the tribe changed the rule for when ballots would be accepted on the deadline itself, rather than postmarked by the deadline. This created problems for members who don’t live near the reservation, said the spokesman.
Another member of the group, Michelle Roberts, noted that some members received newsletters and reminders to vote but not the actual ballots. Roberts told KUOW, “It’s just fishy that they could receive other correspondence that wasn’t as critical in the mail but they didn’t get a ballot.”
The four candidates who lost say they plan to file a protest against the election to the BIA.
One of those losing candidates, Robert Doucette, said, “I was the one who always said the people’s voice was their vote, but the more I thought about it, the more things didn’t add up right.
