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Voters left to choose MHA chairman in election marred by no debates
Photo by Buffalo's Fire.
Tex Hall and Mark Fox square off Tuesday in the Three Affiliated Tribes chairman’s race, an election marked by a lack of public debate between the two candidates. So, all chairman-race campaign speeches have taken place in partisan campaign rallies and dinners.
“I have been working with KMHA radio on a debate and (Fox) wouldn’t commit to them and ran off last Wednesday (Oct. 19) when the veterans center tried,” said Hall. “Call him, then you know.”
Buffalo’s Fire reached out to Fox several times for an interview. He never responded. In 2018, Fox also refused to debate Hall when both men also competed for the chairman’s seat four years ago.
The tribe’s election board certified the results of the Sept. 20 primary contest between current chairman Fox and former chairman Hall. This year, voters cast 990 votes for incumbent Fox and 569 for Hall from a field of some 10,500 enrolled voting-age Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara citizens.
“I’m really optimistic, I think we’re getting a lot of people both on and off the reservation and I think they like our plan.”
TEx Hall, Three affiliated tribes Chairman candidate
Former Chairman Hall led the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s Tribal Business Council in three previous terms. He told Buffalo’s Fire he is ready for the next chapter. “I’m really optimistic, I think we’re getting a lot of people both on and off the reservation and I think they like our plan.”
He attributed his winning-vote turnout to a key message in campaign to create a general council for the Three Affiliated Tribes. “It puts our people first,” said Hall, “and it gives all the authority to the people, that they sit over the tribal council, they pass the budgets, they make decisions like that. So it finally resonated.”
The proposition of creating a general council continues to be a central message in Hall’s campaign. He’s also advocating to bring back the Peoples Fund. Hall established the People’s Fund when he was the chairman in 2013. The fund was originally created to assist citizens of the tribe, a plan that Hall says has fallen to the wayside under current leadership.
Along with the general council, Hall is also proposing a complete forensic audit of the Three Affiliated Tribes to combat the lack of budget transparency issues. Hall also addressed his stance on accessible voting challenges.
“It’s really limiting it actually,” said Hall on the tribe’s election ordinance with off- reservation voting.
“I support mail-in ballots and allowing off-reservation voters,” said Hall, “Like the General Council, everybody’s the same, everybody’s treated the same. There’s nobody better than anybody, and in my plan I would have no ordinance to amend our constitution to allow mailing ballots for anybody living off the reservation.”
Some 73 percent of MHA tribal citizens live away from the Fort Berthold Reservation, and voting rights advocates note their lack of access to polling opportunities. A tribal ordinance requires on-site and in-person voting policies. Some say this presents a challenge for MHA citizens who do not live on or close to the Fort Berthold reservation.
In addition to those issues, Hall, who is president of the Fort Berthold Allottees Land and Mineral Owners Association, has been actively representing allotted land owners on Fort Berthold whose water and land rights are being violated.
Meanwhile, citizens who showed up at Fort Berthold polling places in the primary cast their votes for chairman like this: Scott Satermo, 473 votes; Carol Good Bear collected 165; Ronald Brugh, 30 votes. The Three Affiliated Tribes election board recorded a total of 2,227 votes for all tribal chair candidates.
Three council representative races drew lower voting turnouts in the reservation segment polling. The chair votes exceeded the representative ballots by nearly 1,850.
In the Parshall-Lucky Mound political district, voters gave Mervin Packineau a simple majority, meaning he earned more than half of the total votes in his race. In Twin Buttes district, Cory Spotted Bear also won by simple majority. This means they are automatically elected.
In a field of six candidates from the Four Bears-Little Shell district, neither Edward “Tyke” Danks, Jr. nor Robert White received enough votes to win a majority. As the top picks, they will compete for the segment vote on Nov. 8.
The general elections for the MHA Nation will be held November 8th. For any questions concerning polling locations or the election, contact the Tribal Election Board at (701) 627-6135.
References:
Certification of Results 2022 Primary Election, Three Affiliated Tribes Election Board 2022
Three Affiliated Tribes, Election Ordinance,