WEBINAR: Native American post-mortem on US midterm elections

Political junkies and technophiles alike might enjoy this archive of a recent webinar conducted by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) as part of their ongoing campaign to promote Native American voter participation within mainstream US politics. Known as Native Vote, organizers regard

Indian Country [as] … an increasingly powerful voting bloc. In recent years, the Native vote has been publicly acknowledged as making a visible difference in national, state, and local elections. The Native Vote campaign is working closely with regional organizations, tribal governments, and urban Indian centers to create a strong and permanent infrastructure for election training that highlights voter registration, election protection policies, and Native mobilization.

Presented by NCAI Executive Director Jacqueline Johnson Pata, “Native Vote: The 2010 Election and the Impact on Indian Country” offered a post-election breakdown as to what the US midterm election results could mean for Indigenous peoples.

Despite the less-than-optimal audio, it’s exciting to witness the use of technologies like GoToMeeting within Native circles. In many ways, these initiatives are still in their infancy (as evidenced by the lack of questions from attendees for the Q&A), but the potential is very much there. Perhaps we will see something like it emerge in Canada one day.

To go straight to the analysis, zip ahead to the 12:05 mark. To learn a bit more about the Native Vote campaign, start at 5:15. (The first 5 minutes were tied up with technical details pertinent to the original ‘webcast’ only.)