opportunity to challenge interior's recognition decision as per se unlawful current claim to settle federal law which includes not sacrosanct the out of the western washington of the secretary of has a responsibility to interpret tribal la would be validated whether by postmark or by voter signature or otherwise and it simply quote unquote declined to do so without explanation which we maintain represents a change in policy and we now know why interior having satisfied the quorum requirement both of those judgments that is that you don't have a quorum is an interpretation of tribal council law and the decision that it will recognize decisions by the northwest in a tribal court system indicates that in some respects it is it is doing so it explains it is doing it on that because of its government to government responsibilities so i want to come back to that question again what is that where where precisely did you want do you want to get involved here what do you want relieved to finally decide whether tribal law should have come to bear in deciding the recognition of the tribal council meaning should ballots have been validated according to postmark or according to voter signature or by some other way that would then in accordance with decided how about would be validated whether by postmark or whether by voter signature therefore it was ambiguous at least on the record presented by the election superintendent also they also determined that it wouldn't affect the election and under their rules the perspective that is if they have to get in and make all the decisions in place of an election commission that's a way of interfering with with tribal affairs but that cannot be the contention of either the united states or anybody else when the matter of the election was delegated to the secretary been cheerier and then delegated the decided to get involved in the st instance in a matter what normally would not be involved it then became a federal matter not an intramural matter not a matter of internal affairs tribe or the federal government in any way that would make sense in any sense of a normal election and for that reason within within the tribe in an ordinary election is the be all you get down to this level of granularity normally to be eidos not at all get involved in an election year on there was a board that never reached again there is zero evidence on the record that any ballot was validated according to tribal law and it was therefore left to be i a s trustee under the emma way to do that and they simply refused and now we know why they refused either announced in hudson or at knox back without an explanation so at a minimum your honor they needed to explain why they declined to interpret tribal law in this instance and they simply refused and we know they refused because they had ulterior motive in refusing  ill terrier motive in recognizing the governing body a including the u s department of the interior i want to address st this notion that the briefs filed by the department this year has any bearing on this particular situation is supposed to apply appropriate law to subsections in the statute specifically direct the secretary to apply appropriate law so in that instance your honor certainly in the context of a secretarial election which the position we've taken here of course we recognize there are appropriate times or the secretary for purposes of the department to apply appropriate to apply tribal law or to try to understand tribal law in order to reach determination never been our position at any time in this case that this article for the department to do so well the other side is advocating here is to say there is a policy that requires in every circumstance that the department circumstance in which you didn't say that the tribe election board didn't make a determination on this is fantasy the try to election board looked at the complaint made by the candidates another persons of no exact and decided number one that one ballot that was the attention of the of the elections board was allegedly in appropriately received was a replacement ballot and that those can be received by hand by the a service employee who was receiving the ballots there abhi half of the postal service now one can argue whether that seems strange or not but the most important consideration in the election election boards determination which appellate court decisions and basically what the department determined is yes this was consistent with the with the election code of the challenges were appropriately  circumstances in which is appropriate for the department of interior to take tribal law into consideration it just wasn't necessary in this circumstance and no policy required the notion that there's some policy out there that accordance to congressional direction none of that is present here and doesn't even deny that there's no regulation there's no manual there's no handbook in order nothing tells the department that it was required to make a determination there's no showing that there's been any reversal of policy there's no showing that there's been a policy in the st place even assuming there was a policy there's nothing that pointed to that prevents the department look this was an unusual circumstances  everybody understands that everybody understands that it was unusual for that part of the interior to get involved to this extent in this particular circumstance but they did and they were adapting to the situation that was presented it looks on so i want to address the remedy because i think that was what you were talking to judge young i wonder about really to you because the remedy that they seem to be seeking is not one that would be a remedy that policy to look at that provision decide whether it was ambiguous or not and make a decision as to how to validate a ballot again there is zero evidence that any consideration whatsoever was given by the election board or the b i a or the department of