Link: Article
Seneca-Cayuga election postponed again
Friday, 22 July 2016 23:15 Written by LENZY KREHBIEL-BURTON, Native Times
GROVE, Okla. A Bureau of Indian Affairs court is delaying an already rescheduled Seneca-Cayuga election.
On Wednesday, Magistrate Tom Walker ruled to postpone a reconvened General Council meeting of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation.
In June, Walker had ordered the tribe to reconvene its General Council meeting on or near July 23 with an independent monitor to oversee its election.
According to the court minute from the hearing, the decision stems in part from a temporary restraining order regarding a candidate challenge issued in May that has not been vacated.
LeRoy Howard, the former chief of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation, filed paperwork to run for another term. His eligibility for office was challenged, prompting litigation in the Miami Agency's Court of Indian Offenses. That litigation also prompted the Seneca-Cayuga Business Committee to announce in April that the tribe's regularly scheduled election on June 4 would be postponed.
However, an election was conducted anyway after an attempt was made to unilaterally conclude the meeting.
Video footage of the June 4 meeting taken with a cell phone shows two tribal members attempting to call a point of order with respect to the agenda during a presentation from an auditing firm. Chief William Fisher did not acknowledge either and eventually announced the meeting was adjourned without asking for a motion or calling for a vote to end the session.
The results of that election, along with motions to disenroll Chief Fisher and several other tribal officials, were invalidated by Walker last month.
On Friday, Chief Fisher said neither he nor the reinstated business committee members had any idea when the tribe will have the green light to move forward with the rescheduled General Council meeting. His faction had filed an appeal, citing Walker's ban on absentee balloting.
"That's in the hands of the court right now"¨ he said. "We would like it to be as soon as possible, but we also want to protect the rights of all of our members to vote absentee. That was the main reason behind our appeal."
The court clerk's office in Miami, Okla., did not respond to requests for docket information.
Headquartered in Grove, the Seneca-Cayuga Nation has about 5,100 enrolled tribal citizens.
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