Here's a news article which indicates that about 8,400 people voted in the election last Saturday that took away Cherokee citizenship from the descendants of Freedmen and others:

CHEROKEE KICK OUT FREEDMEN

By S.E. RUCKMAN World Staff Writer
3/4/2007

"Final results show 77 percent of voters want tribal membership to be determined by blood.

TAHLEQUAH -- Cherokee Nation voters overwhelmingly chose to remove freedmen from their tribal rolls in a special election Saturday.

Complete results late Saturday show 77 percent of the voters supported the proposed amendment to the Cherokee Constitution. About 8,700 votes were cast in the tribe's 14-county district.

The question put to voters proposed a constitutional amendment to require that only descendants of "by blood" tribal members on the 1906 Dawes Rolls would remain in the tribe, excluding about 2,770 freedmen descendants, who were affirmed by the tribe's high court as tribal citizens in March 2006.

The vote was 6,693 for the measure to 2,040 against.

The amendment also removes non-Indian descendants of "intermarried whites," according to the ballot wording.

Members of the Shawnee and Delaware by blood rolls, who also are Cherokee Nation citizens, will remain on the rolls.

The amendment excludes from Cherokee tribal rolls the descendants of freed Cherokee slaves categorized as freedmen.

Freedmen often intermarried with the tribe and lived within the
Cherokee Nation boundaries.

The special election was set by Principal Chief Chad Smith after the tribal court approved a protested initiative petition in November.

Tribal officials said the results of Saturday's vote are theoretically effective immediately, but no action will be taken to formalize the amendment until after a protest period ends March 12.

During that time, if a challenge is presented, it will go before the tribe's Supreme Court.

Smith, who said he was neutral on the issue, said the vote was a statement on self-government.

"The number of voters who turned out to vote on the constitutional amendment was actually more than the number who originally voted on the Cherokee Nation Constitution four years ago," he said. "I think that reflects the idea that this is an issue that has been close to the heart of the Cherokee people and an issue they have thought about carefully before voting."

Meanwhile, opponents of the constitutional amendment were disheartened by the result.

Marilyn Vann, president of the Freedmen Descendants Association, had pushed tribal and federal court challenges to the initiative petition calling for a vote and also was unsuccessful in securing an injunction to halt the special election.

"It's hard to win against the Cherokee Nation; the Delaware lost and the UKB (United Keetoowah Band) lost," she said. "I never wanted to put anyone out of the tribe; I want everyone who has ancestors on the Dawes Rolls to stay in the tribe, including me and the freedmen."

One tribal councilor, at-large representative Taylor Keen, said he was concerned about the implications of removing tribal members from the rolls.

"With this vote, the Cherokee Nation will start into motion the violation of the 1866 treaty, a severing of the nation's legal continuum with the United States, and perhaps our very precious sovereignty as a federally recognized tribe," he said.

The same constitutional amendment question is on the ballot of the tribe's regular election scheduled for June 23. The regular election is for principal chief, deputy chief and council members. "


http://www.tulsaworld.com/NewsStory.asp?ID=070304_Ne_A1_Chero67589