News from rural America.

The midterms are fast approaching and research shows Native voters can expect significant barriers, rural hospitals struggle to keep up with electronic record keeping, Banned Books Week comes as Congress debates censorship, and the Headless Horseman rides again!

TRANSCRIPT

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

As midterm elections near, new research shows Native voters will likely face numerous roadblocks.

Native American Rights Fund attorney Allison Nesswood says from 2020 to 2024, rejected voter registration applications increased by an average of 200 percent in counties where Native Americans make up at least a quarter of the population.

Their registration is getting denied, their ballot's getting rejected, and all of this really adds up to the systemic disenfranchisement of our people in our own homelands.

Geographic isolation of rural tribal lands is a huge obstacle to voting, and why Nesswood says more infrastructure investment is needed in Indian country.

Making sure that our Native communities have polling locations, a reasonable distance from where they live.

They have registration opportunities that they can participate in mail voting.

Electronic record keeping is becoming the norm for health care systems, but the labor it takes to manage the data threatens to cripple rural hospitals.

Angela Klopp is with Nordic, a health and technology consulting firm.

We have this ongoing burden that is put upon our rural communities.

They're trying to figure out how to manage their costs, how to manage their resources, and it becomes very overwhelming.

Many rural hospitals and clinics don't have modern electronic record platforms to securely share or receive health records.

To compound the problem, often only one or two people manage the record system.

Club says the disparities highlight the need for targeted interventions.

Rural communities, the only thing they have in common is that they're all different.

The solution is not a one-size-fits-all.

So how can these organizations structure the process that makes sense for them?

This year's Banned Books Week spotlights the freedom to read and the harms of censorship, even while Congress debates competing legislation over book availability.

Most book banning efforts start at the local level, but PEN America's Casey Meehan says proposed federal legislation would withhold education funds from public schools unless certain books are removed.

It could be more symbolic than something that would get passed through, but now we're also watching how efforts to restrict access to certain kinds of books is playing out at the federal level.

An alternative bill would require federally funded public and school libraries to maintain diverse book collections.

PEN America says more than 23,000 books have been banned since 2020, with rural communities impacted more than urban areas due to fewer resources.

October's fall festivals range from hot air balloon rides in New Mexico to avocado gnashing in California and legendary beer and brats everywhere else.

But Fishers, Indiana tops Halloween Fright, where night after night, the legend of Sleepy Hollow's Ichabod Crane is brought to life during the month-long Headless Horseman Festival.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more world stories, visit dailyyonder.com.