Election Limbo Part II, Day 16: Watching Paint Dry

In an "instant gratification" world, waiting for these election results is TORTURE. But, we can appreciate the Election Commission's commitment to accuracy. 

All that we know of what has been happening is contained in a rundown-type press release that reads like the most boring diary in the world. How many ways can you say no votes were counted today? Well, read for yourself to find out.

It looks like the absentee ballots will be counted tomorrow-- but according to the press release, unofficial results won't be released until Wednesday.

Election Limbo Part II, Day 14: John Blutarsky Edition

The voting is over right?  Please tell us the voting is over right?  That’s what the schedule says, that’s what the calendar says, but if there’s anything we’ve learned from this election, it’s that we should never say it’s over.   

We thought it was going to be over June 25.  Then we thought Baker won on the 26^th.  Then we thought Smith won on the 27^th.  Then we thought it would be over after the recount.  After the Election Commission botched that one, we thought it would be over after the court hearing, and their own personal recount.  We bet Smith hoped so too, because he was ahead then.  But was it over any of those times?   

Nope.  A new election was scheduled.  So we thought it would be over on September 24.  But then S. John Crittenbaker decided to extend the election two weeks for the freedmen, and then, AFTER ELECTION DAY, they decided SOME Cherokees could still vote, as long as, heaven forbid, they didn’t mail in their absentee ballots.  The Election Commission then decided that Cherokees who voted by mail deserved just as much an opportunity to vote as the ones who live in Tahlequah.  But it’s still not over.  Not even today.  Or tomorrow.

When will it be over?  Well, to quote an American icon:  “Nothing’s over until we decide it is!  Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

Ummmm…. No.  

We’re putting the over-under for the inauguration as Halloween.  Which side is the smart money on?

Stayed tuned: tomorrow we get unofficial, semi-formal, partial results from the election commission.

Cherokee Truth will tell you what the numbers mean tomorrow night.

Election Limbo Part II, Day 5: Predictions Based on Truth (but predictions/guesses all the same)

We are kind of used to early voting, which Cherokee Nation Election Commission calls, oxymoronically, In-Person Absentee Voting.  That all happens before the election.  Today, we’ve entered the brave new world of late voting, which occurs when the rules for an election change after Election Day.  Only in the Cherokee Nation, right?

Well, there’s been a big fuss by both candidates about what this means, and if it’s fair.  Today, we’re trying to figure out how much it will matter, if at all.

We have no official numbers, but our reliable sources say the election commission was not that busy today.  Nowhere near what it was like for a typical day of early voting.  According to the Election Commission, about 1100 people voted in early voting for the September election, in four days of walk-in voting.  That’s 275 folks a day. 

So let’s guess about half that today, just to be safe: maybe 150. 

We know from the June election that Baker won the Tahlequah walk-in voting 609 to 427 (which of course is why he and Crittenden-- S. John Crittenbaker-- probably wanted it reopened after they took a close look at the turnout)

That’s basically a 60-40 split. 

A 60-40 split for 150 voters is 90 for Baker and 60 for Smith.  So, if Baker gains 30 votes a day on Smith, for five days, he’ll be 150 votes closer to (or further ahead of) Smith than he was before Baker asked for the rules to change.  That’s not an insignificant number, but it’s hardly earth-shattering.  

If Baker does gain 150 votes here, how many does he really gain overall?  Because while his plan was only to allow Cherokees in Oklahoma to vote, the election commission said that to be fair to all Cherokees, absentee ballots could be turned in late too.  And those tend to favor Smith.  Using the original count numbers, Smith got about 56% of mail in ballots, to Bakers 44%. 

So for every 100 late absentee ballots that come in, Smith would stand to gain 12 votes on Baker.  Let’s just guess and say 200 total come in.  So Smith nets 24, and Bakers gain is down to 126 votes.  Finally, there’s the freedmen vote, but only the freedmen who haven’t already voted and aren’t already included in the 8787 voters that scared Baker on Sunday and had him asking for the rules to change.

Smith, Baker and everyone else seem to think most of those will go to Baker, but how many will that be?  We’ve heard there are 1000 or so Freedmen voters.  How many more will vote that haven’t already?  200?  300?

So here’s our guess, based on the facts at hand.  Baker nets about 150 more votes than Smith on walk-ins.  Baker nets 300 more than Smith freedmen votes that haven’t been counted.  And Smith gains 30 or so on Baker with late absentee ballots. That means Baker's maneuvering to change the election rules after the fact might gain him 120 votes or so.  The freedmen that he already has in his back pocket are another few hundred.  So a best case scenario for Baker is he picks up 420 votes from where he was on Saturday.  Is that enough to ease his fears?  Considering that the voting was so close in June, he has to be at least happier.

Keep in mind, this is all guess work, but based on the known facts that we have on hand.  Feel free to give your own guesses, but please use facts to back them up.

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.

3 Days Until the Election: Mr. Crittenden Goes to Washington

It’s official:  Freedmen can vote in our new election, thanks to an agreement approved Wednesday by APCSJC, the Freedmen and the BIA.  Significant in the deal is that the election ain’t over on Saturday:  Freedmen get extra time to get their absentee ballots in (which makes sense since they didn’t get them as early) and they also get two extra days to go vote in-person, besides election day and the other early voting available to the rest of Cherokee citizens.  

Oh, did we mention the best part?  The federal court ruling seemingly trumps our Supreme Court by telling them that Cherokee law doesn’t count and that freedmen are citizens.  So that whole referendum to gain signatures, and then the vote of the people and then the four year court challenge all meant jack squat, because it was tribal law.  Freedmen are citizens as long as the judge in DC wants them to be, according to the court order.

Pretty harsh huh?  The judge really handed it to us on that one. Oh wait, the judge didn’t decide that! Crittenden decided that himself by signing the agreement.  Maybe he felt he needed to compromise and let the BIA have what it wanted and let the freedmen have what they wanted, but in doing so he ignored what the Cherokee people voted for in 2007, and he did so voluntarily.  Ouch.

The election will go forward on Saturday.  For the people who were Cherokee citizens on Monday, that’s their last chance to vote for chief.  For the people APCSJC decided to make citizens on Tuesday, they have until October 8 to vote. 

Let us make sure you understand what we're saying here: if you are Cherokee by Blood-- you can vote early in person Thursday in Tahlequah from 9-5, and in your assigned precinct on Saturday, the 24th. Your absentee ballot MUST be received by the Election Commission on Saturday. ONLY non-Indian Freedmen get extra days to vote. Check out the Cherokee Phoenix's online story today for all the hairy details.

 

P.S.  Late tonight we heard that Baker and Chuck Hoskin, Jr. are accusing Smith of colluding with Barney Frank to somehow keep HUD money while Smith was Chief.  When asked by Channel 6, they could produce no evidence, and Frank himself said it was bull BLEEP.  Really. Only he didn’t say bleep!  Watch the channel 6 story if you don’t believe us.  This time Baker is getting busted by the media and a Congressman immediately when he’s not telling the truth. We’ll see if it slows him down.

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!

11 Days Before the New Election: BIA Goes Nuclear

As our alert readers have pointed out, the BIA sent a letter to the Cherokee Nation saying the BIA won’t recognize the upcoming election if the freedmen don’t vote. And that had Cherokee Truth blowing up!

Eight years into the freedmen court case in DC, the BIA decides to tell the world that the “Department’s position is, and has been” that the freedmen have citizenship rights in the Cherokee Nation.   

Really?  Even though they've recognized tons of other elections where Freedmen didn’t vote (Wilma Mankiller, anyone?), suddenly the BIA has always said the Freedmen should be citizens. Odd, they didn’t think to mention this once in the previous eight years!

Our readers and other news sources (the Tulsa World was first and thorough) have covered what this letter and the accompanying court filing might mean:  an unrecognized election, no election at all (which is what the freedmen have asked for), a loss of sovereignty and/or the BIA basically picking who would be chief.

APCSJC put a letter on the Cherokee Nation web site today in response. It said, in part: 

“The Cherokee Nation will not be governed by the BIA.  We will hold our election and continue our long legacy of responsible self-governance." 

He also says some more interesting stuff:

“I am also pursuing political remedies that are in the best interest of the Cherokee Nation. I will do my best to quickly resolve this issue and I have mobilized all resources to quickly resolve this matter so that services to our people and the operation of the tribal government are protected.  I will also do my best to ensure that services will not be interrupted and the election will occur timely.  The Cherokee Nation will emerge stronger because we will act quickly.”

Notice he uses the word "quickly" three times and "timely" once. Even though this issue has basically been going on at the Cherokee Nation since 1866, APCSJC is going to fix it all in his six weeks or so running the show. Which will be impressive if he can do it. It makes us wonder what he means by ‘political remedies.’  Thousands of Cherokees thought that a constitutional amendment was a political remedy to this issue, in part because our Supreme Court told us so.

The BIA says the election can happen, but in their opinion it won’t count unless the Freedmen vote.  The Freedmen say the election shouldn’t happen at all unless they get to vote, and oh by the way, if they don't get their way-- just terminate the whole dang Cherokee Nation.

But no worries-- APCSJC says he’ll "quickly" resolve it.  Let’s hope he does it while following the Supreme Court and upholding his oath to defend the Cherokee constitution.  Election Day is little more than 10 days away, absentee ballots are being mailed in as we speak, and early voting starts Saturday.

Election Limbo Days 37-39: Can't We All Just Get Along?

"Can't we all just get along?"
~ Rodney King

We stepped away for a few days because sometimes life just won't let you be online, and come back to find what we'd hope would end. There were some good conversations (we left those alone) and some outright catfights (which we removed). Plus a little conspiracy theory and potty-mouths thrown in for good measure.

So, for a few days we are going to turn off the "Post Button" - it should work where you can comment on posts we make, but people won't be able to write on our wall. Maybe if we all just cool our heads for a few days, we can come back fresh and ready to talk about the TRUTH.

Meanwhile, remember-- the deadline for Absentee Ballot requests is looming. Get them in to the Election Commission by August 12 at 5 pm. If you are an At Large Voter-- THIS IS YOUR ONLY WAY TO VOTE. So, if you don't request an absentee ballot, you won't be heard at the polls. If you requested an absentee ballot for the general or run-off election, you should automatically be mailed a ballot.

See the Election Commission's page to find out all the details and download your request.

Election Limbo Day 34: Save the Date!

Chad Smith has called the new election for September 24th.  The Election Commission and Smith apparently worked together on it and set the date.  There will be a couple of weeks for people to request an absentee ballot (until August 12), then the absentee ballots will be mailed out the week before the Cherokee National Holiday.  We think the holiday will be quite a spectacle this year, with both campaigns in full force and S. Joe Crittenden giving the State of the Nation speech.  Depending on how long it takes after the election to certify, recount and appeal, it could be October before our election is over.

A couple of important things to note: 1) if you are an At-Large voter, the ONLY way you can vote is via absentee ballot. If you just show up at a precinct on September 24 and cast an At-Large Challenge Ballot, your vote will NOT be counted. There was much voter confusion over this in the general election on June 25th. 

2) If you requested an absentee ballot for the general or run-off election, the EC should send you one for the September 24th election. 

3) If you want an absentee ballot, the only way for you to get one is to request the ballot in writing. So, if someone just calls and asks you if you'd like to vote absentee and you say "yes," that doesn't mean you are getting a ballot. Download this form here and fax it to the Election Commission at (918) 458-6101 (or mail it or drop it off). Yes, we are aware this form was for the run-off election last week, but just write "Sept. 24th Election" at the top for clarification. The information is what is important, not the form itself. We imagine there will be a new form available on the EC website, but as of tonight it was not.