OKLAHOMA CITY — A western Oklahoma tribe’s upcoming election might be getting postponed due to federal litigation.

In late June, Acting Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Larry Roberts ordered the BIA to conduct an election for the Kiowa Tribe. That election is set for Saturday and 1,910 absentee ballots went out last month.

However, claiming a lack of authority to call an election, Kiowa citizen John Daugomah filed suit Thursday with the Western District of Oklahoma, naming Roberts, former Bureau of Indian Affairs Southern Plains regional director Dan Deerinwater, BIA deputy director Mike Smith and the five members of the BIA election board as defendants.

“This is not a situation where the tribe has taken an official action to request the BIA to act or where the tribe has made an official request or decision subject to BIA approval…rather here, the BIA itself has decided to take unilateral action to call and conduct a tribal election based on the BIA’s determination that the tribe has suffered four years of broken government,” Tulsa attorney Jason Aamodt wrote.

Daugomah is seeking a temporary restraining order, a temporary injunction and a permanent injunction. A hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday before Judge Timothy DeGuisti.

In August, Daugomah filed a challenge with the Interior Board of Indian Appeals after the federally-appointed election board issued two election notices with different information. Less than a week after the challenge was filed, the BIA assumed authority over Daugomah’s appeal and dismissed it.

The federal government has not universally recognized a Kiowa election since December 2010. Since then, three of the eight business committee members have either resigned or simply quit showing up to meetings.

Citing a carryover clause in the tribe’s constitution, the five remaining members, led by Amber Toppah, have claimed that they are a legitimate business committee and have been working out of the Kiowa Tribe’s complex.

None of the five members of the Toppah-led business committee are among the candidates on the ballot.

Under the current Kiowa constitution, the tribe has a hearing board as its final arbiter, but it has not been fully staffed for an extended period, thus making it unable to intervene. Attempts were made to conduct elections in 2011, 2012, and 2013, however, the tribe’s election board has not had enough members to constitute a quorum and its office has been locked for several years.

For more than four years, the BIA’s Southern Plains Regional Office recognized the Toppah-led business committee as the tribe’s official government for purposes of contract renewals.

However, in February, the Board of Indian Appeals vacated the decision to recognize the Toppah administration on the grounds that Deerinwater overstepped his authority in doing so while an IBIA appeal was pending.

The initial filing also points at a pending lawsuit from Anita Onco Johnson. Johnson filed the suit last year after the BIA declined to process a petition from more than 500 Kiowa citizens to call an election to amend the tribe’s constitution.

"Rather than honoring the Kiowa people's efforts to resolve their governmental issues themselves, the BIA has instead interjected itself into the middle of the tribe's affairs by unilaterally calling and arbitrarily conducting the special tribal election, thereby selecting the BIA's preferred course of action,” Aamodt wrote.