Voter-fraud suspect suing Flandreau tribe

By Chet Brokaw, Associated Press Writer | Saturday, October 19, 2002

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PIERRE — A woman being investigated for possible violations of state election laws has asued the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe over her unsuccessful attempts to run for tribal president.

State and federal officials have been investigating Becky Red Earth-Villeda of Flandreau, who also goes by the Dakota Indian name of Maka Duta, on allegations that she falsified voter registrations and requests for absentee ballots on some American Indian reservations.

South Dakota Democratic Party officials said they fired Red Earth-Villeda after discrepancies were found in two applications for absentee ballots she collected in Dewey and Ziebach counties, which comprise the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation.

Red Earth-Villeda filed a federal lawsuit in June alleging that the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe violated her rights by rejecting her nominating petitions when she tried to run for tribal president in 1998 and again this year.

The lawsuit also says Red Earth-Villeda was banned from tribal offices in February 2000.

Red Earth-Villeda is seeking monetary damages and a court order requiring Tribal President Thomas Ranfranz to repay his salary and all other money he received after winning the 1998 election. She

also sought to stop this year's tribal election, but U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol refused to halt the August election.

Documents filed by the tribe say Red Earth-Villeda's nominating petitions were not

rejected in 1998. She was certified as a candidate for tribal president but got only three votes in the 1998 primary, the tribe said.

Red Earth-Villeda's nominating petition was rejected this year because it contained a forged signature, according to court documents filed by the tribe.

Tribal attorney Jennifer Fyten said Red Earth-Villeda did not forge the invalid signature. The flawed signature was on behalf of a young woman who is mentally incompetent, and the young woman's mother actually wrote the signature, the tribal attorney said.

"So Ms. Red Earth didn't actually forge the signature herself," Fyten said.