Justice Department to monitor Tuesday's
election in 28 states
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[November 08, 2016]
By Julia Harte
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Personnel from the
U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division will be deployed to
polling sites in 28 states to monitor Tuesday's election, five more than
it monitored in the 2012 election, the department said on Monday.
Most of those states will receive Justice Department staff who have no
statutory authority to access polling sites as a result of a 2013
Supreme Court decision that struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act,
curtailing the department's ability to deploy election observers with
unfettered access to the polls.
More than 500 Justice Department personnel will be deployed on Tuesday,
compared to more than 780 personnel the department dispatched during the
2012 general election. A Justice Department spokesman declined to say
how many of Tuesday's personnel will be full-access observers.
Tuesday's hotly contested election, including the presidential race
pitting Republican Donald Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton, will
be the first in decades in which the Justice Department can only send
full-access observers to states where a federal court ruling has
authorized it.
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On the campaign trail, Trump has warned the election may be rigged and
has called on supporters to keep an eye on voting activity for possible
signs of fraud in large cities. Numerous studies have found that U.S.
voter fraud is exceedingly rare.
"As always, our personnel will perform these duties impartially, with
one goal in mind: to see to it that every eligible voter can participate
in our elections to the full extent that federal law provides," said
Attorney General Loretta Lynch in a statement.
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Workers prepare for the election night event for Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the Javits Center in New
York, U.S. November 6, 2016. Picture taken November 6, 2016.
REUTERS/Rick Wilking
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Courts have granted the Justice Department permission to deploy
full-access observers in five states: Alaska, California, Louisiana,
New York, and Alabama. But the court order for Alabama only pertains
to municipal elections and it is not on the list of states where the
Justice Department is deploying poll watchers this year.
The Justice Department staff who are deployed to the other 24 states
on Tuesday will be election "monitors", who must rely on local and
state authorities to grant them access to polling locations.
“In most cases, voters on the ground will see very little practical
difference between monitors and observers," said Vanita Gupta, the
head of the department's civil rights division, in a statement.
(Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Will Dunham and Alistair Bell)
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