Some Eastern Shoshone tribal members are voicing concerns about the integrity of the tribe’s primary election held on Sept. 17.
About 15 people, including some elders, gathered outside the Shoshone Business Council’s (SBC) chambers in Fort Washakie to protest perceived election irregularities.
More specifically, protestors took issue with the Eastern Shoshone election judges’ efforts this month to correct absentee ballots that listed the wrong number of possible candidates for voters to choose from.
After the election judges noticed the mistake, they released a statement saying new absentee ballots would be mailed out to voters and to throw out the old ones. They also changed the date for the newly-corrected absentee ballots to be returned from Sept. 13 to Sept. 20.
But protestors say the judges don’t have the authority to change the date. That change came in the form of an amendment to Resolution 2007-9862 section 1000.13, an election resolution that some say can only be altered by a quorum of the tribe’s General Council. The council is the supreme governing body of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe and is made up of enrolled members over the age of 18.
Election judges, which are elected positions, are in charge of running elections for the tribe.
“I think that our people finally woke up, and they [the SBC] see that we're awake now, and they can't continue to keep going,” said Bobbi Shongutsie, a tribal member who’s running as a write-in candidate in the primary and who attended the protest.
Protestors held signs that read “new election judges” and other slogans.
Shongutsie said the problems with the primary are leading to confusion.
“I'm still getting calls from Shoshone tribal members, and I'm not even an election judge,” she said. “They want to know where their ballot is.”
The Shoshone Business Council did not respond to requests for comment on this story by press time.
After a petition was circulated by a community member, an emergency special General Council meeting to address the absentee ballots question and other issues is set for Saturday.
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