Two Northern Cheyenne Election Certificates Name Different Council Members. Here Is What the Records Still Do Not Show.

DOCUMENTS & ACCOUNTABILITY | Independent news analysis · By Steven Bullcoming Haworth | Collaborator: Corry Bullcoming

NORTHERN CHEYENNE RESERVATION, MONTANA — November 4, 2026. Two photographed election certificates now circulating after Tuesday’s voting list different people for five Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council seats. One is attributed to the Council-associated November 3 election; the other is identified as a separate “People’s Election.” The documents offer names, candidate-vote figures and signatures. They do not, on their own, settle which election’s authority will be legally recognized or how many distinct people participated in each process.

Truth in Focus has posted a photographed source-record gallery of the Council-associated certificate. Six distinct pages are presently accessible there—pages 1 through 5 and 7. Page 6 was present in the photographs supplied to the newsroom but has not yet been located in that gallery. Readers should therefore treat the online gallery as an incomplete reproduction, not a complete certification packet.

The photographed Council-associated reservation-wide certificate is dated November 3 and lists a five-person election board. A stamp says the document was received by the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Northern Cheyenne Agency that day. A BIA receipt stamp is not, by itself, a federal audit or endorsement of the legal standing of an election. The original document and its accompanying district-level records have not been independently authenticated by Truth in Focus.

The Council-associated certificate lists Eugene Little Coyote with 232 candidate votes against Donna Fisher’s 218 in Ashland. In Busby, Torrey Davie is listed with 342 votes, alongside numerous written-in entries. For three Lame Deer seats, the printed-candidate entries show Alan Joe Blackwolf with 341, Henry Speelman with 319, Melissa Lonebear with 297, Sven Limpy with 207, Dana Eaglefeathers with 152 and Corey Spottedelk with 119. Page 7 of the photographed certificate identifies Little Coyote, Davie, Blackwolf, Speelman and Lonebear as the persons it declares elected. These are figures attributed to that certificate; they are not independent verification of ballot accounting or the eventual legal outcome.

How to read the table: Names and vote counts are attributed to the respective photographed certificates, not to a single authorized combined election. A person listed as elected in one process may have been on a different ballot or written in during the other.

The different photographed “People’s Election” certificate, which Truth in Focus posted earlier, reports another set of council winners: Waylon Rogers (165) for Ashland, Doris Littlewolf (256) for Busby, and Robert Simpson (242), Alan Joe Blackwolf (189) and Jennifer Sue Pipe (167) for Lame Deer. Those figures belong to a separate voting effort with disputed authority and different candidate lists. They should not be added to the Council-associated totals or presented as a single election result. The two documents’ claims require separate verification.

The first unresolved question is turnout. How many individual people registered, received a ballot, cast a ballot and had their ballots counted in each district? Adding candidate totals cannot answer that question—especially in Lame Deer, where voters were choosing among candidates for three council seats. One person could have cast votes for more than one candidate. A report that somebody voted in two separate processes may be a useful lead, but without matched records it cannot prove duplicate voting within either process or establish fraud.

The second question concerns write-ins. The photographs contain entries such as “Bigfoot” (one recorded vote), “God Help Us” (one) and “Me” (one). These are transcriptions of marks recorded on the tally, not findings that the names represented eligible candidates or valid write-ins. Other entries include “Jennifer Pipe” with 42 and “Jenny Pipe” with 34 on the Lame Deer tally. The records pictured do not explain whether election workers reviewed similar names together, assessed candidate eligibility, or disqualified particular entries under written rules. Truth in Focus has not assumed those two names refer to the same person.

The third question is who oversaw the count and who appointed the judges. The reservation-wide certificate displays signatures for election judges associated with Ashland, Birney, Busby, Lame Deer and Muddy. A signature on a photograph does not establish any signer’s family relationship to a candidate or official, nor does it establish a conflict of interest. The relevant appointment notices, oaths, district-board membership lists and any recusals are needed before such questions can be evaluated responsibly.

The publicly posted Northern Cheyenne Revised Tribal Election Ordinance (as amended) provides more specific standards. Section 16(a) says district boards are to count ballots and sign their district certificates, then bring the certificates and ballot boxes to the Tribal Secretary. Section 16(b) directs the reservation-wide board to compile totals from district certificates and sign a reservation-wide certificate within five days of the election. It also directs the Tribal Secretary to provide copies to tribal leadership and arrange for “posting of a copy of the Certificate of Reservation-Wide Election Results in a public place in each Reservation District.”

Under Section 16(d), the BIA Superintendent is designated the custodian for originals of voter-registration certificates, absentee-ballot applications, ballots, spoiled-ballot certificates and district and reservation-wide result certificates. Section 17 addresses the appointment, oaths and duties of election judges and clerks. These provisions describe required procedures in the publicly available text; whether an amendment, court order or other operative authority changes how they applied on November 3 must be checked before drawing legal conclusions.

The documents needed to resolve the public questions include the signed results certificates from each district; counts of voter-registration certificates, ballots cast, absentee ballots and spoiled or challenged ballots; lists of appointed judges and clerks; contemporaneous written guidance for write-ins; and the reservation-wide board’s complete signed record. These items could help establish turnout and accounting without asking readers to choose which political faction they trust.

The central issue is not whether a particular name seems surprising on a list. It is whether each election can show the public the source documents, rules and verifiable accounting behind its declared result. Truth in Focus is seeking those records and welcomes timely responses from the election boards, tribal officials, candidates and readers with firsthand documentation. No allegation of ballot fabrication, a family-based conflict of interest or criminal misconduct has been established by these photographs.

Read the documents and the election ordinance

• Council-associated document gallery: pages 1–5 and 7 currently available
• Separate People’s Election certificate, photographed page 1 and page 2
• Northern Cheyenne Revised Tribal Election Ordinance, sections 16 and 17 (original PDF)
• Buffalo’s Fire, November 3: Council-associated candidates and polling information (secondary reporting, not certification)
• Truth in Focus Election 2026 hub

Editor’s note: The existence of photographed records and the signatures visible on them do not independently validate the counting, establish who lawfully governs, or support an allegation of rigging. The published ordinance is a historical/online legal source that may have been amended; requests for current operative rules and any court orders are ongoing. Truth in Focus will update this article with verified source documents and corrections.

Version 1.0 | November 4, 2026. AI assisted in organizing research and drafting; source review and publication responsibility remain with Truth in Focus. Copyright © 2026 Steven Bullcoming Haworth & Corry Bullcoming. All rights reserved. A Bullcoming Enterprises publication.