news could easily have initiated a debate about the criteria for the number of voters without engaging genealogists to investigate the language use of individuals’ great-grandparents. The Sámi Parliament’s experience in managing the number of voters shows that older publicly available registers do not always contain sufficient or correct information when it comes to Sámi language use in Sámi families. In particular, this applies to the registration of Sami language use in areas where the Sami language should not be spoken in public due to the Norwegianization policy, and should ideally be hidden as well as possible. The Sámi Parliament’s electorate is managed by the Sámi Parliament’s plenary leadership, based on the rules of the Sámi Act. Requests to be included in the number of electors are processed by the Sámi Parliament’s administration in accordance with the Administration Act. An assessment is made as to whether the person applying to be registered in the electoral roll meets the objective criteria that the person concerned, parents, grandparents or great-grandparents had Sami as their home language. If you are the child of someone who is or has been in the Sami Parliament’s electoral roll, you can also claim to be included in the Sami Parliament’s electoral roll. In addition, the person who submits such a petition must declare that the person in question considers himself to be Sami. The management of the Sami Parliament’s number of voters is based on the trust of the Sami people, the number of voters is the very foundation of Sami democracy in Norway. The Sámi Parliament is the Sámi people’s representative body, an indigenous parliament that has been established to safeguard and promote the Sámi’s rights as a people. The role of the Sámi Parliament is linked to the Norwegian constitution’s recognition of the Sámi as a separate people and an indigenous people in Norway. Therefore, it is also of great importance that the Sámi Parliament’s number of electors is correct at all times. The Sámi Parliament’s electoral roll is, as is often repeated, not a complete register of Sámi in Norway, but nevertheless it is a register of Sámi who have the right to vote in the Sámi Parliament elections. It is a register based on ethnicity and must therefore be managed in line with both national and international rules. There is nothing to prevent a broad and public debate about the criteria for the Sami Parliament’s number of electors. But in such a debate it is important not to knock on open doors. Electoral research shows that a majority of Sámi who have been included in the electoral roll believe that the criteria as they are today are acceptable. A minority among Sami included in the census believe the criteria should be less strict, and another minority believe the criteria should be stricter. The criteria for the number of voters was expanded in 1997, so that the Sámi Parliament can also enroll Sámi who have great-grandparents who had Sámi as their home language. This extension was adopted to ensure that Sámi living on the coast in northern Norway and in southern Sámi areas could enroll in the electoral roll. In these areas Norwegianization was at its strongest, which meant that many Sami families lost their Sami languages, but not their Sami identity. It is important that the number of voters does not contain errors. The right to elect their own representatives to the Sami Parliament belongs to the Sami people. In the period 2012–2024, the Sámi Parliament has only received 2 complaints relating to 5 people included in the electoral roll. The Sámi Parliament’s electoral roll is published for so-called public inspection – for reading every election year, either at municipal, county council, Sámi Parliament or Storting elections. Through this inspection, errors can be reported in the head count. Errors in the number of people can also be detected by people publicly coming out and acknowledging that they have deliberately given incorrect information to the Sami Parliament, that they do not meet the conditions. This provides a basis for overturning the decision on introduction in the number of electors. It is therefore not correct when it is suggested in the public debate that the Sámi Parliament’s management of the number of electors does not contain any control mechanisms. The proceedings relating to voter registration cases are administrative decisions where the person applying to be registered in the electoral roll is himself asked to provide information about previous generations’ use of language. It varies widely how difficult it is to find such information, and we accept a wide range of sources, everything from public registers to church books, newspaper notices or other historical sources. The Sámi Parliament has cases that are easy to assess, cases where parents are already registered in the electoral roll, in which case the children also have a right to be registered. But we also know that it can be difficult to find information about, for example, great-grandparents’ use of the Sami language. The Sámi Parliament’s administration therefore provides guidance on where information about the language use of their foremothers and fathers can be found, and this guidance goes far beyond what the Sámi Parliament is obliged to do under the Administration Act. This is done because being allowed to participate in Sami democracy is an important matter for most Sami people, being allowed to both vote and be elected as a Sami parliament representative is for many a form of recognition of belonging to the Sami people. But Sami affiliation can never be dependent on whether you are on an electoral register. There are many Sámi who are not included in the electoral roll, either because they have actively opted out of the electoral roll for various reasons, or because they have never wanted to activate their vote in the context of Sámi parliamentary elections. We need more knowledge about the reasons for announcements from the electorate, it is also not a good signal if many people opt out of the electorate without the Sámi Parliament knowing the reasons for this. This autumn, the Sámi Parliament’s plenum adopted several measures to strengthen the administration of and information on the criteria for the number of electors, and more resources have been allocated to this work. The Sámi Parliament will also obtain more knowledge about the administration of electoral numbers in Sweden and Finland to see if there is a basis for increased cooperation between the Sámi Parliaments in such matters, it will be particularly interesting to look more closely at information on historical sources across the borders. The Sámi Parliament’s management of the number of electors will always be the subject of a critical spotlight, and we must both tolerate and accept that. Managing the very cornerstone of Sami democracy in Norway – the number of voters – is a big responsibility that the Sami Parliament takes seriously. We manage the trust of the Sami people, and it is a task that requires humility and should contribute to predictability. That is why we continuously work to improve our own routines and spread knowledge about the number of voters in society so that everyone who applies to be registered in the number of voters will have their case dealt with in a responsible manner. Send us your opinion Want to write? Feel free to contact us at news Ytring with your post. The guidelines can be found here. Published 08.11.2024, at 12.27
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