Vote count resumes without electoral officer

SIOUX VALLEY DAKOTA NATION — Three ballot boxes that were locked away in the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation government office on Thursday night were opened and counted on Friday afternoon without the presence of the electoral officer who had signed off on the boxes.

According to a livestream on the First Nation’s YouTube channel, Jennifer Bone was leading the race for chief last night at press time after a tumultuous two days of vote counting.

Electoral officer Burke Ratte shut down the First Nation’s ballot count on Thursday amid concerns for his safety and those of his team, he told the Sun on Friday. He said he dealt with multiple threats throughout the day, and that a group of people had forcibly opened a locked door to the building during the election proceedings.

“It’s pretty bad. I mean this is just terrible,” he said in a phone interview. “We had so many threats of violence thrown at us during the polling time, and we had to leave after I started the ballot count last night.”

At around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Virden RCMP received a call to assist in keeping the peace. The report said that there was a threat made toward an electoral official.

Ratte was escorted out of the community under supervision of the Mounties.

The electoral officer left the signed ballots for the election in care of First Nation safety officers. The ballot boxes were then locked away in the governance office, where cameras watched over them until Friday afternoon.

The election for chief pitted Bone against incumbent Vince Tacan, who was charged earlier this month for an alleged 1984 sexual assault. As well, 14 candidates were running for council.

On Friday, a community meeting took place with roughly three dozen Sioux Valley elders and representatives of candidates on the ballot. The group decided to move forward with the vote count that had been stopped the night before.

“Our elders got together and had a meeting,” community member Jonah Wacanta told the media after the meeting. “We are going to count the ballots.”

The community members opted to write Ratte a letter relieving him of his duties effective immediately, and they organized to count the ballots on a livestream on YouTube. The stream started around 4 p.m. and extended into the evening.

As of 8:45 p.m. last night, Bone, a former chief, was leading with about 160 votes to Tacan’s 85 votes.

Ratte said he does not know how the Friday count will fare legally. He said he has advised the federal government of the situation, but had not received a response as of Friday afternoon.

“I’m the electoral officer and I’m not counting those ballots,” he said. “I’m the one responsible for, not only counting the ballots, but signing off on the results. So it will be interesting to see what happens.”

Ratte said he was appointed by the chief and council through a council resolution, and that he is not sure if the same authority extends to the elders group that relieved him of his duties on Friday.

The Sun reached out to Indigenous Services Canada late in the day for information on this process, but did not receive a response before press time.

Not a member of Sioux Valley, Ratte travelled from Winnipeg to be the election official. He said he felt in danger of people storming into the band hall, but he did not see the group of people that pulled the door open.

Tatedutawin Pompana, who later livestreamed the event to social media, said she thinks the threat was overestimated.

Pompana said it was a group of six women that opened the locked hall door, and the door is known to open with a pull. She said no one entered the hall, it was peaceful, and that First Nations safety officers had the situation under control.

“It was fine, I wasn’t scared,” she said. “I did not feel threatened standing out there.”

Roughly seven First Nations safety officers were on scene. The officers occupied the doorway to prevent people from going inside.

Another community member, who was inside the hall and did not give her name, said she felt threatened by all the commotion given threats earlier in the day.

“We have three doors in our veterans hall; all three doors were being banged on,” the woman said.

RCMP told the Sun the threat against the election official had been unfounded as of Friday afternoon.

“The threat remains unsubstantiated, there have been no arrests and there have been no reports made to the RCMP of weapons being present at the voting site nor of any damage to the building,” an RCMP spokesperson wrote in an email to the Sun on Friday.

Ratte said he would have finished the ballot count Thursday night if there had been no disturbance. When he left, Ratte said, he planned to return in safer circumstances.

“We are going to figure out a day where it’s really safe out here where I can come back and do a ballot count,” he said on the Thursday election broadcast.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com