1973-12-15 Char-Koosta News

              18-Year-Olds Will Vote On Dec. 15th
Dixon: Some 2 43 new members will be eligible to vote in the upcoming Dec. 15 Tribal Council and Constitutional Committee elections. These voters are resident members between the ages of 18 and 21.
The Tribal Council Elections Committee...composed of councilmen Tom "Bearhead" Swaney, Tom Pablo, Vic Stinger, Bob McCrea and John Mal-atare....decided Monday to go ahead with the lowered voting age pending a U.S. Federal District Court decision on the Nov. 17 Tribal Constitution Amendment Election to lower the voting age.
B-U-L-L-I-T-E-N
The Secretary of the Interior has notified the tribe that 18 -year-olds may vote in the Dec. 15 election.
The ruling was based on a recount of the Nov. 17 election in which previously disqualified reservation votes were validated, this brought the total reservation turnout over 30 percent, thus automat ically lowering the voting age.
The committee called for marked ballots from resident 18 year olds to be counted separately from the votes of over 21 members. The results of the 18 year old vote would be determined by the outcome of the court case over the eligibility of off-reservation members in the earlier constitutional referendum.
U. S. District Judge William Jameson is drafting a decision which will determine whether or not the constitutional voting age of tribal members will be lowered to 18 years. A referendum election was held Nov. 17 and both on and off-reservation voters approved of the lowered age.
But the Tribal Council did not approve of the off reservation vote and took the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who had set up the rules for the election and allowed the off reservation members to vote, to court.
VOTE DECEMBER 15
Choosing Your Candidates and Casting Your Vote
A lot of people think that just because they did not register to vote in the Nov. 17 Constitutional Election, they are not allowed to vote in the Dec. 15 Tribal Council-Constitutional Committee elections.
And there are those tribal members who think that even though they registered for the 18 yetr old election, they will not be permitted to vote in the Dec. 15 election because they did not vote Nov. 17.
Then there are those who think they missed a special registration for the Tribal Council and will not be able to vote.
All of these people are
wrong. No registration of any kind is necessary for eligibility to vote on Dec. 15. If you are a qualified voter, all you need do is show ud at vour district polls on Dec. 15, identify yourself, and vote. That is all you have to do.
Here is a checklist of what you should do election day. —-First of all, decide whether you are an eligible voter. The Tribal Constitution and by laws require that voters in Tribal Council elections must be an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes .. . must have resided on the Flathead reservation for at least one year
prior to the election ... and must be at least 18 years of age -
The tribe went to the polls November 17 to decide whether or not the voting age should be lowered to 18. The returns from both on reser-_(cont. on page 6 )
Your Vote Counts
Does one vote count in a Tribal Council Election? A look at the 19 71 Tribal Council election results show that the vote of one person in very important.
(cont. on page 2)
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THE BI-WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF THE SALISH, PEND'd ORIELLES AND KOOTENAI TRIBES OF THE FLATHEAD RESERVATION
Volume 3 - Number 16      FULL MOON OF CONTINUOUS SNOW     (December 15, 1973)
34 To Appear On the Tribal Council Ballot
Tribal voters will go to the polls Saturday (Dec. 15) to select five tribal council members from what is believed to be the largest ballot in the history of the reservation Voters will have to choose from a record number of 34 candidates in spite of several casualties during a qualification review by the council's Elections Committee.
The committee ... composed of the five tribal councilmen who retain their seats for two more years....met Dec. 3 to rule on the eligibility of 39 declared candidates. The com-
mittee disqualified four -on the basis of a tight interpretation of the residency requirements in the tribal constitution. The constitution says that "no persons shall be a candidate for membership in the Tribal Council unless he shall be a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Flathead Reservation and shall have resided in the district of his candidacy for a period of one year next preceding the election." The committee interpreted this to mean that unless a candidate had lived within his (cont. on page 2 )
Con - Con Has 31 Hopefuls
A last minute surge in filings for the Constitutional Committee will give tribal member voters a choice of 31 con-con candidates in the De. 15 Tribal elections.
These people are vying for ten seats in the eight reservation districts. Those elected will review the tribe's 1935 constitution and decide whether or not it needs changing. They will also have the authority to draft the changes or rewrite the entire governing document. The results of the (cont. on page 2)
All Tribal Members who have lived on the reservation for one year or more and are of legal voting age (either 21 or 18, depending on the judicial outcome of the November 17 election) are eligible to vote in the December 15, Tribal Council Elections. No registration is necessary. Qualified voters must only appear at the polls and identify themselves on December 15.