Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Partners FileChallenge

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Partners File Challenge to Jackson County’s Refusal to Provide Equal Voting Opportunities

WASHINGTON, D.C. AND NEW YORK – On September 18, 2014, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee), Dechert LLP, and Rappold Law Office filed a lawsuit against Jackson County, South Dakota on behalf of four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Jackson County.  The lawsuit challenges the refusal of Jackson County to provide equal opportunities for voter registration and in-person absentee voting (or “early voting”) to all residents.  The plaintiffs are Thomas Poor Bear, Don Doyle, Cheryl Bettelyoun, and James Red Willow.  The lawsuit, Poor Bear et al. v. Jackson County et al., was filed in the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota and alleges that Jackson County violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.  In addition to Jackson County, defendants include the County Auditor, the Board of County Commissioners and the individual commissioners in their official capacities.

This case arises from Jackson County’s refusal to set up a “satellite office” for in-person voter registration and early voting in Wanblee, which is on the Pine Ridge Reservation.  South Dakota has “no excuse” absentee voting, so any voter may vote in-person absentee 46 days before an election.  In Jackson County, in-person voter registration (which ends 15 days before the election) and the 46 days of early voting are available only in the County seat of Kadoka.  Kadoka has a population that is over 90% white, though the population of Jackson County is about half Native American.  It takes Native Americans in Jackson County, on average, twice as long as it takes whites to reach Kadoka. 

In May 2013, the Oglala Sioux Tribe, with the assistance of O.J. Semans, Sr., executive director of the voting rights group Four Directions, Inc., requested that Jackson County establish a satellite office in Wanblee.  Wanblee is the most populous community in Jackson County and is over 90% Native American.  It takes about half an hour to travel from Wanblee to Kadoka.  Establishing a satellite office in Wanblee would equalize the average time that it takes white voters and Native American voters to reach a location for in-person registration and early voting.  The County refused the request to establish a satellite office in Wanblee.  Even after South Dakota revised its Help America Vote Act (HAVA) plan to specify that Jackson County could use HAVA funds to establish a satellite office—and Bret Healy, a consultant for Four Directions, attended a meeting of the Board of Jackson County Commissioners in April of this year to explain the availability of HAVA funding—the County still refused to do so.

“In-person registration and in-person absentee voting provide a benefit to voters, but that benefit is not equally available to Native American citizens in Jackson County,” said Bob Kengle, co-director of the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

“The right to vote is the foundation of American democracy, and we are committed to protecting that foundation for our clients,” said Erik W. Snapp of Dechert LLP.  “Jackson County’s ongoing failure to provide equal voter registration and early voting opportunities to all of its residents violates the federal Voting Rights Act and our clients’ constitutional rights to equal protection of the law.” 

Matthew Rappold, of Rappold Law Office, a private, public interest law firm, is serving as local counsel in the case. 

About the Lawyers’ Committee:
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, was formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to involve the private bar in providing legal services to address racial discrimination. We celebrated our 50thanniversary in 2013 and continue our quest of “Moving America Toward Justice.” The principal mission of the Lawyers' Committee is to secure, through the rule of law, equal justice under law, particularly in the areas of fair housing and community development; employment; voting; education; criminal justice and environmental justice.  For more information about the Lawyers’ Committee, visit www.lawyerscommittee.org.

About Dechert LLP:
Dechert is a global specialist law firm focused on sectors with the greatest complexities and highest regulatory demands.  We deliver practical commercial insight and judgment to our clients’ most important matters.  Nothing stands in the way of giving clients the best of the firm’s entrepreneurial energy and seamless collaboration in a way that is distinctively Dechert.