Lots happening in the last couple of days, so there is a lot to analyze. Initially, we thought it would be 48 hours before the election commission certified the results, and we could talk about the CN’s Supreme Court ruling. But the Election Commission finished up today instead, and the results look a lot like they did before. The totals ended up being 10,703 to 9128. No big surprise there.
The Cherokee Nation also released information about timelines for appeals, and it looks like October 24 would bethe earliest date for an inauguration. That would be after the timelines for recount and appeal. If there is an appeal, it would be after that.
Why would there be an appeal? Well, as we alluded to yesterday, the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court gave a big middle finger to APCSJC by issuing an order saying Crittenden “entered into an agreement… that contained terms that were in direct violation of the Constitution and an order of this court….”. The order also said that APCSJC “had no authority under the Constitution to bind the Cherokee People to an agreement without their consent when such agreement would violate a provision of the Cherokee Nation Constitution.”
That agreement, FYI, was the agreement that made Freedmen citizens again, right before the federal judge was about to rule that they weren’t.
The Justices are basically telling everyone that the election, where hundreds of Freedmen voted and hundreds of late votes were counted in Baker’s home town, should have ended on September 24, because that is what Cherokee Nation’s laws said to do. But it’s not what S. John Crittenbaker wanted, so it’s not the deal they made with the freedmen and BIA. The deal they made broke tribal law, and the Supreme Court sat up, took notice, and made said metaphorical gesture.
So how will this all shake out? Baker will want the freedmen votes to count, because he won. Smith would probably want the election thrown out, because it was done in violation of tribal law (and he lost). The Cherokee people probably just want it all to be over.
