Choctaws oust council member; Kiowas elect new vice chair

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Choctaw Nation voters oust an incumbent council member, while Kiowa Nation voters elect a new vice chairman and secretary in a disputed election.<br/><br/>Longtime Choctaw incumbent

Tuesday, July 12th 2005, 6:10 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Choctaw Nation voters oust an incumbent council member, while Kiowa Nation voters elect a new vice chairman and secretary in a disputed election.

Longtime Choctaw incumbent council member EJ Johnson received just 10.7 percent of the vote and finished third among three candidates.

Anthony Glen Dillard received 60.6 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff. Incumbents Delton Ray Cox and Joe Ed Coley were re-elected in landslides.

Kiowa Nation voters ousted Vice Chairman William Tartsah, who lost to George Daingkau, 334 to 320. Also, Margie Darby Pence defeated incumbent Secretary Ernestine Ware Hernasy and two other challengers.

Attorney Jon Velie of the Kiowa Project for Democracy says he'll ask the US Bureau of Indian Affairs not to recognize the results.

Velie says the tribe's election board refused to accept the registrations of more than 150 new voters and kept three candidates off the ballot for bogus reasons.