Welcome to Test of Endurance, a short psuedo choose your own adventure written by Evelyn Scott with five possible endings. In this narrative, you take on the role of an Indigenous resident of a North Dakotan reservation during the 2018 midterm elections.
If you want to go back to a previous segment, use the grey arrow in the upper-left of the screen.
[[Start]]Normally, you would wake up to your alarm at 7am, and be down at work by 8. Today, however, you got to sleep in. It's November 6th, 2018: Voting Day, and you've just woken up a little after 9:30.
Fortunately for you, your boss has given you the day off to go vote, so you aren't missing work by catching up on sleep. Unfortunately, this is the first weekday you've had off in three months. You know this is causing issues with your family, but quite frankly you need the money right now. You know your wife and daughter would love to spend time with you, but you also know what's expected of you today.
Do you go vote?
[[Stay Home]]
[[Go to Vote]]Not like you're vote is going to matter anyways, what with the electoral college and all. Might as well spend some more time with your family.
END 1
[[Start Over]]Of course, even if it's going to be a pain, you deserve to have your voice heard. You know from the last election that your polling location is a few dozen miles away, but you've got a car. You think about how nice it would be to make it home before your daughter's school gets out at 3:00.
You gather up your driver's license, social security card, and car keys, and head out the door. You get in the car, turn the key, and the engine roars to life.
[[Start Driving]]The ride is fairly short, the rez isn't that large. It takes a good half hour, but with your trusty map you make your way to the address you have from last election. However, as you get closer you realize the people standing around the surrounding blocks aren't there for fun - there's a line, a long one at that.
You park the car a few blocks away and get in line. It takes about an hour, but you finally arrive at the front of the line.
[[Enter the Polling Station]]Fortunately, there's only about a dozen more people in line inside the building. When you get to the front, you meet the poll worker who asks for your address. Upon hearing you live on the reservation, he gets a disapointed look on his face and tells you that your polling location was changed.
[[Ask Why]]
[[Head Home]]
[[Go to the New Location]]"I don't make the rules Ma'am, something about voter fraud. All I know is if you're living on the reservation, your polling location got changed this year. It should only be another half hour from here. Can I get you a map?"
You respond with a simple "No thanks," realizing this isn't going to get you anywhere. You head back out to the car.
[[Head Home]]
[[Go to the New Location]] You don't think you can drive another hour into the city for this, and decide to cut your losses. It would probably be best if you did something more productive with your time anyways.
END 2
[[Start Over]]The other location was, as the poll worker said, only another half hour away. What he didn't take into account was waiting in another line - this one even longer than the last. It is at this point you wish you had brought a good book to pass the time.
It has taken much longer than it should have, about three hours, but you finally arrive at the front of the line. One of the polling officials comes up to you and asks for ID. Of course, since North Dakota doesn't have voting registration, you just have to provide them with your Driver's License and everything will be fine.
[[Hand Over Drivers License]]"Err...Ma'am, this is an invalid Voting ID."
[[What?]]"It doesn't have a valid residential address. You need an ID with your name, date of birth, and address to be eligible to vote."
[[Yes it does!]]You ask for your ID back, and the woman hands it back to you. You point out to her that there is an address on it - your P.O. Box.
"I'm sorry Ma'am, but that's not a valid residential address. If you don't have the proper ID, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
[[Leave]]
[[But it worked last election?]]She sighs, and you get the sense that she's said all this many times before to other would-be voters.
"A few months ago, the Voter ID laws were changed in North Dakota. Now, a P.O. Box isn't a valid address for voting."
You remember hearing about this change back in the summer, but you're pretty sure it didn't go into effect.
[[Didn't the courts block that change?]]The woman is clearly getting frusturated with you, as are the people behind you in line.
"One of the lower ones did, but that was lifted after an appeal back in September. If you don't have a residential address, you could have contacted the county's 911 coordinator and recieved a temporary address."
[[No one ever told me that.]]"Listen, I don't make the laws, I just know that this ID isn't a legal voting ID. I'm going to ask you again to leave, or I'm going to have to call the police."
[[Leave Quietly]]
[[Make a scene]]With a dejected sigh, you turn around and head out the door marked exit. It's a solid two and a half hours home, and you find it difficult to think about anything other than the Kafka-esque bureaucracy you just experienced. You fiddle with the radio at a red light and manage to turn on NPR, which only makes your situation worse to hear the election is hardly going your way. How many other people like you are out there, unable to vote because some judge decided they couldn't just months ago...
By the time you finally get home, it's nearly 4:30pm and you are completely exhausted. So much for your day off.
END 5
[[Conclusion]]Well, you try to make as much of a scene as you can, screaming at the poll worker and trying to get the people in line on your side, but it doesn't seem to do much other than prevent even more people from voting too. Eventually, the police show up, and arrest you and a few other Indigenous people for "disrupting the peace". So much for getting back home early.
END 4
[[Start Over]]
[[Conclusion]]At this point, you're just done with this nonsense. You can't believe you wasted this much time, but it's not worth getting into a fight over it. You take your license back from the poll worker and head back out to your car, dejected.
END 3
[[Start Over]]Thank you so much for playing my game!
Here are some sources you can use for further reading:
An article discussing things at the time: publicintegrity.org/politics/elections/us-polling-places/north-dakota-native-americans-have-overcome-barriers-to-vote
About Indigenous Voting Issues over time: https://vote.narf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/obstacles_at_every_turn.pdf
On where things stand today: https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/806083852/north-dakota-and-native-american-tribes-settle-voter-id-lawsuits
An Indigenous-run Charity on the Case:
https://www.narf.org/cases/nd-voter-id/
[[Start Over]]
[[Q&A]]A weird quirk of the program I'm using requires an extra screen here. Click Start below to actually restart.
[[Start]]Q: Is this a true story?
A: Yes and no. This story is based on the anecdotes of real Indigenous people in North Dakota who faced events like this in 2018, but this specific story is a piece of historical fiction written by me. Everything presented about the Voter ID Law change was true information, and scenarios like this one did actually occur.
Q: Where specifically does this story occur? What reservation is the protagonist from?
A: I deliberately avoided putting details like that in the story, to prevent getting bogged down in the minutia. Including a specific tribe or reservation might have implied that it was a local issue, when this Voter ID change affected the whole state.
Q: How many people were actually affected by this issue?
A: It's unclear, since we don't have that much data on the topic. The state did provide a workaround, which allowed almost everyone who couldn't vote in 2018 to vote in 2020, but there was a court case over this issue that ended very recently (as of time of writing, November 2020). You can read about that in the sources section if you'd like.
Q: What are your credentials to write about the experiences of Indigenous people?
A: This is something I struggled with during the project, being a white girl. The story was written for an Indigenous Studies course I took in Fall of 2020, and while I did my best to portray this moment in history as accurately as I could, I'm not a primary source. My goal wasn't to be the end all piece on this topic, which is why I've included further reading in the Conclusion section. If you have time, please look into primary sources when researching Indigenous rights issues.
Q: Wait, the protagonist is in a gay marriage? But that wasn't legal at the time?
A: Honestly, being a lesbian myself, the protagonist being queer wasn't even something I thought of until the editing phase. It is true that North Dakota tribal law didn't start to recognize gay marriage until 2020, but I think it makes sense for a same-gender couple raising a child together to consider each other spouses, even if the law hasn't allowed them to make it legal yet.
Q: How did you make this story?
A: Twine, a free open-source program specifically designed for making choose your own adventure stories. It's pretty easy to use, you can check it out at twinery.org.
Q: How do I play again?
A: Reload the page, click the grey arrow to go back a section, or click Start Over here at the bottom of this page.
I hope you enjoyed the game, and learned something along the way! - Evelyn
[[Start Over]]