blood" in the Dawes Roll because of having been classified only in the Cherokee Freedmen category. Thus such individuals lost their "blood" claim to Cherokee citizenship despite having satisfied the criterion of having a close Cherokee ancestor. In 1924, Congress passed a jurisdictional act that allowed the Cherokee to file suit against the United States to recover the funds paid to Freedmen in 1894-1896 under the Kern-Clifton Roll. It held that the Kern-Clifton Roll was valid for only that distribution, and was superseded by the Dawes Rolls in terms of establishing the Cherokee tribal list of membership. With passage of the Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946, Congress established a commission to hear cases of Indian claims. Numerous descendants of the 1,659 Freedmen who had been recorded on the Kern-Clifton Roll but not on the Dawes roll, organized to try to correct the exclusion of their ancestors from Cherokee tribal rolls. They also sought payments from which they had been excluded. Loss of membership On October 22, 1970, the former Five Civilized Tribes had the right to vote for their tribal leaders restored by Congress via the Principal Chiefs Act. In 1971, the Department of the Interior stated that one of the three fundamental conditions for the electoral process was that voter qualification of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole must be broad enough to include the Freedmen citizens of their respective nations. The Freedmen were issued voter cards by the Cherokee Nation, headed by Principal Chief W. W. Keeler, and participated in the first Cherokee elections since the 1900s as well as subsequent elections. In the 1970s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs began to provide several federal services and benefits, such as free healthcare, to members of federally recognized tribes. Numerous descendants of Cherokee listed as Cherokee by blood on the Dawes Commission Rolls enrolled as new members of the Cherokee Nation. As members of the Cherokee Nation, federal services were also provided to the Cherokee Freedmen. However, certain benefits were limited or unattainable. In a letter to official Jack Ellison in 1974 regarding freedmen eligibility for BIA and Indian Health Service benefits, Ross O. Swimmer, then-Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, stated that the Freedmen citizenry should be entitled to certain health benefits like other enrolled Indians A new Cherokee Nation constitution, approved by the commissioner of Indian Affairs on September 5, 1975, was ratified by voters on