Reservation Vote Elects Pro-Gambling Candidate as Mohawk Chief

ST. REGIS INDIAN RESERVATION, N.Y. — A Mohawk Indian who views casino gambling as an economic boon to the reservation unseated the tribe’s anti-gambling incumbent chief in an election Saturday.

The election amounted to a referendum on gambling, an issue so divisive among Mohawks it led to bloodshed May 1, when two Indians were shot to death in a clash between pro- and anti-gambling factions. Since then, New York state and Canadian police have occupied the 28,000-acre reservation, which straddles the international border.

Norman Tarbell received 637 votes to defeat his distant cousin, incumbent Harold Tarbell, who got 538 votes in his attempt to win a second three-year term, according to acting tribal secretary Stacey Terrance. Twelve votes were ruled invalid, she said. Harold Tarbell said he would appeal, alleging voting improprieties.

With Norman Tarbell’s election, the three-man tribal council ruling the U.S. side of the St. Regis Indian Reservation will unanimously support casinos on Mohawk land. The other council chiefs are Lincoln White and L. David Jacobs.

Norman Tarbell is to become junior chief on the council on July 1. At that time, Jacobs becomes head chief and White second chief.

Norman Tarbell said Saturday that his first priority as a chief would be “to put our people back to work.”

Traditionalists such as Harold Tarbell claim that the eight casinos on the U.S. side of the reservation breed drug-running, prostitution and other crime. White, Jacobs and Norman Tarbell say the casinos bring badly needed jobs to the reservation, where the unemployment rate is about 30%.

About 3,400 Mohawks were eligible to vote in the election on the reservation.

Harold Tarbell said Saturday night he would contest the election on the grounds that Jacobs and White excluded U.S. Mohawks living on the Canadian side from voting. In past elections, Mohawks living there were allowed to vote.

“Well, I haven’t quite lost yet, because there were so many improprieties . . . we’re going to have to sort that out in the next couple of months,” Harold Tarbell said. He characterized the voting as “chaos,” and said: “It made no sense to protest . . . so we’re going to have to appeal it.”

Jacobs and White adopted a list of eligible voters based on tribal rules that allow only Indians living on the U.S. side to vote. A state Supreme Court judge upheld the list Friday.

Harold Tarbell, who lives on the U.S. side, said he wasn’t on the official voting list but was allowed to vote anyway. He alleged that the many people not on the list were also allowed to vote.

Most of the U.S. Indians living on the Canadian side are gambling opponents and likely would have voted for Harold Tarbell. As many as 500 U.S. Indians living in Canada would have been eligible to vote, Harold Tarbell said.

The casinos have been closed while tribal leaders negotiate with state and federal mediators to end the gambling war.

BACKGROUND

A dispute over casino gambling had simmered for years on the St. Regis Indian Reservation before two Mohawks were killed in separate shootings on May 1. Since then, there has been a heavy police presence at the reservation, which straddles the border between the United States and Canada. Gambling proponents say the casinos provide badly needed jobs in an area of high unemployment, but opponents argue that they breed prostitution, drug-running and other crimes.