Editing Indian Reorganization Act (section)

=== Approval by tribes ===

Section 18 of the IRA required that members of the affected Indian nation or tribe vote on whether to accept it within one year of the effective date of the act (25 U.S.C. 478) and had to approve it by a majority. There was confusion about who should be allowed to vote on creating new governments, as many non-Indians lived on reservations and many Indians owned no land there, and also over the effect of abstentions.
Under the voting rules, abstentions were counted as yes votes,<ref>Terry Anderson, Sovereign Nations or Reservations: An Economic History of American Indians. Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy 1995, p. 143</ref> but in [[Oglala Lakota]] culture, for example, abstention had traditionally equaled a no vote.  The resulting confusion caused disputes on many reservations about the results.
When the final results were in, 172 tribes had accepted the act, and 75 had rejected it.<ref>T. H. Watkins, ''Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874-1952'' (1990) p 541</ref><ref>[https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/franklin-delano-roosevelt-a-new-deal-for-indians/ Indian Country Today August 9. 2016 reports 174 approved and 78 disapproved]</ref>  The largest tribe, the [[Navajo Nation|Navajo]], had been badly hurt by the federal [[Navajo Livestock Reduction]] Program, which took away half their livestock and jailed dissenters. They strongly opposed the act, the chief promoter John Collier, and the entire Indian New Deal.<ref>Donald A. Grinde Jr, "Navajo Opposition to the Indian New Deal." ''Integrated Education'' (1981) 19#3-6  pp: 79-87.</ref> Historian Brian Dippie notes that the Indian Rights Association denounced Collier as a "dictator" and accused him of a "near reign of terror" on the Navajo reservation. Dippie adds, "[h]e became an object of 'burning hatred' among the very people whose problems so preoccupied him."<ref>Brian W. Dippie, ''The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy'' (1991) pp 333-36, quote p 335</ref>