Election Limbo Part II, Day 15: Let the Counting Begin

 

The Cherokee Nation Election Commission counted some ballots today.  About 10,300 of them, which was the total number of people who went to the polls on September 24, the ones who voted early and the ones who voted late.

As expected, Baker did well with those votes.  Or, probably better than expected.  According the election commission, and they are the only ones who matter, Baker has 2177 more votes than Smith at this point in the election, with the totals at: 6,223 for Baker and 4,046 for Smith. That’s a 61-39 split, which is great news for Baker.  That’s about 1400 more votes than he got from that group of voters before, which puts Smith behind by a big chunk.

 

Smith won the absentee voting in June, and as the election commission chair Susan Plumb says, “no winner is decided until the last Cherokee citizen’s vote is counted.”  The Cherokee Nation web site also says that the election commission “anticipates counting all absentee ballots and challenged ballots on Tuesday.  It is anticipated that all ballots will have been counted and the unofficial results published by Wednesday.”

The Associated Press talked to the candidates, who had this to say:  

"We are cautiously optimistic," said Baker's spokeswoman, Linda Gray Murphy. 

Smith, in an emailed statement, said: "With still about half the votes left to count, I'm still very confident with how this will turn out."

There are about 12,000 mail-in ballots out there, and Smith won those in June by about a 56-44% margin.  He’ll have to do better than that this time around or Baker will claim victory.

Election Limbo Part II, Day 13: What’s One More Week?

Yesterday, the election commission told us that even though we’ve already waited three and a half months since Election Day, and almost two months since inauguration of APCSJC, we still have to wait another week after voting ends tomorrow.

Usually on election night, they count the votes, declare a winner (unofficially), and they go home. Well, in June, their unofficial winner turned out to be different than their official winner, which may be why they want to take at least THREE DAYS to count the ballots this time, and then take up to another 48 hours after that to certify the election. That could put us into next Friday or Saturday.

The Election Commission did put out a news release about this, which is how we know, and they have some explanations:

“Because of the circumstances surrounding the special election for Principal Chief, the Commission has established a three-day process for counting the election results,” said Susan Plumb, chairperson of the Election Commission. “We know that this has been a long process and people are eager to know who will serve as the next Principal Chief, but the Commission must remain focused on its responsibility of providing the Cherokee people with an accurate, fair and impartial election.”

The commission says they will count walk-in votes on Sunday, then spend Monday processing absentee ballots, getting them ready to be counted. Why do they need a whole day? The commission has a reason: “12,000 registered Cherokee voters requested absentee ballots, which means there were more than 3,800 absentee ballots requested in special election than were requested in the June general election.”

That’s a bunch more absentee ballots. We know there were about 700 more walk-in votes on election day, but also that the increases mainly came in Smith areas. Now we find out that there are 3800 more mail-in votes possible (remember, not all those will be returned), and Smith had the edge on those in June as well, by about a 54-46 margin.

Which leads us to the last little chestnut from the election commission:

“Our sincerest hope is that the candidates will not speculate outcomes of this election until the last citizen’s vote is counted and that candidates will respect the Commission’s procedures and timelines that enable the Commission to fulfill its responsibility,” said Plumb.

We’re sure neither candidate would ever speculate--awwww… who are we kidding?? After all, they are going to count votes on Sunday, and presumably tell us who has the most, and then not count any more votes until Tuesday.

The ONLY thing that will happen between Sunday and Tuesday is speculation. Heck, there was speculation after the commission released TURNOUT figures about who was ahead, and we’re admittedly guilty of that (but at least we labeled it speculation). So Sunday night it will be interesting to see if our speculation from a couple of weeks ago is true: Did Smith gain ground on Baker in the walk-in votes? If so, by how much? If not, did Baker gain enough to offset what was a significant Smith advantage in mail-in votes in June, and might be larger considering how many more absentee ballots might now be in play?

Sorry Susan Plumb-- if it's going to take a week to tell Cherokees who their chief is, we’re pretty sure Cherokees will use that week to “speculate outcomes.”

Election Limbo Part II, Day 3: Pleased to Meet You, Mr. S. John Crittenbaker

Three days after election day 2, our election rules are changing thanks to Jon Velie, APCSJC, Baker, Smith, the BIA, Judge Kennedy in Washington DC and our own beloved Cherokee Nation Election Commission. But the two biggest players seem to be the guys sharing a brain that wants to do whatever the BIA and the freedmen tell them to.  

And henceforth we shall call it... S. John Crittenbaker!

Picture Credit & Caption: www.joecrittenden.com

This morning, S. John Crittenbaker worked out a deal with the freedmen and the BIA saying not only should freedmen be given more days to vote because APCSJC didn’t comply with last week’s court order, but also that Cherokees would now get to walk in and vote.  Hooray for Cherokees, right?  Not so fast. 

1) APCSJC's deal didn’t extend the mail-in voting for Cherokees, so if you forgot to mail your absentee ballot, or mailed it late, too dang bad for you. 

2) Freedmen who haven’t voted by mail already, but did request an absentee ballot, will all be sent a SECOND ballot via overnight mail. 

3) If Cherokees by blood still want to vote, they better know somebody who knows somebody (or just read Cherokee Truth, but we’re sure all our readers already voted, right?), because APCSJC’s custom-made court order does NOT require any notification about extra voting days be sent to Cherokees by blood. But EVERY Freedman must be notified. And lucky for them, that’s already happened.

So while that was sinking in, the election commission met today and Smith told them he didn’t think it was fair that only Freedmen got two extra weeks to turn in their absentee ballots and that only local Cherokees who could drive to Tahlequah (and Freedmen) got to vote, not people who live far away or voted by mail. And the Election Commission agreed with Smith and changed things some more, allowing all Cherokees to turn their absentee ballots in by October 8th.

Smith and Baker both put up comments online, as did the election commission and APCSJC.

Smith pointed out that he was the guy who fought for Cherokee absentee ballots to be counted and equal notification of the extra voting days, while Baker (again) accused Smith of stealing the election the first time saying the AG and the Supreme Court were just doing Chad’s bidding. Keep in mind, the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court hasn’t done anything in a month or so, and declined to make Smith Chief even after they found he had the most votes.

So the votes haven’t been counted yet and it looks like Baker is already lining up his excuses.

The Election Commission got their digs in saying, "It appears that people who know little about the mechanics and physical requirements of conducting an election have decided to try and insert themselves into the Election Commission's day-to-day operations."

On that same page, APCSJC's statement seems to be just a repetition of what the order says. Towards the bottom, he does say: "As of today, the required notice to the Cherokee Freedmen has been mailed. There were never any negotiations that non-citizen Cherokee Freedmen, Cherokee Freedmen unregistered to vote, non-citizen Cherokees or Cherokees unregistered to vote were going to be allowed to vote during the Friday hearing. The Nation will continue to work through this important matter."

So, now we know what "never" happened in the negotiations. But we wonder if we'll ever know what actually DID happen when S. John Crittenbaker was making another deal with the freedmen and the BIA to change our election laws.

10 Days Until the New Election: Britney Spears Edition

Yesterday, the freedmen filed something called a “motion to reconsider” with the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court.  Basically, asking for a do-over in the court case, because, hey why not? We’re having a do-over election, right?  Certainly worth a shot.

Today, a surprise so weird we’re not sure what to compare it to:  the Cherokee Nation agreed to the do-over, and oh-by the way asked the court to put the injunction back in place that allowed the freedmen to have citizenship.   

What?  Since March 2007, the Cherokee Nation has been fighting for its Constitutional amendment in court.  Last month, the Cherokee Nation won.  But today, they told the court we can do this over.  So… what’s changed?  If you say the Echo Hawk letter or the HUD funding hold, that might mean you think money is more important than our people’s constitutional amendment.   And APCSJC might agree with you according to his statement on the Cherokee Nation web site today, which said in part: "I believe the Nation should do what is best for its people especially sinceFederal HUD funding is currently frozen."

  

Or you could go with what APCSJC said to Channel 2 tonight:  

"They may have helped put me in office. I believe they're entitled to vote again."

Surely he didn’t mean it the way it sounded, because some people might interpret that to mean he’s in favor of doing something for the people who voted him in, even if the Supreme Court disagrees.

Meanwhile, the Cherokee Nation Election Commission met tonight and decided freedmen could vote in this election after all, despite the Supreme Court ruling.  The Commission is going to send ballots to freedmen absentee voters and is going to allow freedmen to walk in and vote as well.  They are going to cast challenge/provisional ballots, which means… well, we’ll let Election Commission Chair Susan Plumb explain it: "If a court decides the freedmen descendants can vote we will have the ability to certify the election," Plumb said. "If the court decides they cannot vote we will still be able to preserve the election."

Anyway, to paraphrase Britney Spears: it looks like everybody involved wants our Supreme Court to say Oops!