2016 Presidential Election: Feds Send Poll Monitors to Detroit, Dearborn Heights, Hamtramck

DETROIT, MI — The Justice Department said Monday that it is sending dispatching monitors to keep an eye on polls in Detroit, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck Tuesday, as well as about five dozen other communities across the United States, to “protect the rights of all citizens to access the ballot on Election Day.”

The Justice Department said in a news release that though elections are overseen by state and local officials, it has regularly monitored polls and will do so again during Tuesday’s historic general election, one of the most bitter and divisive in modern history. More than 500 poll monitors will be dispatched to selected states identified as having a potential for voter intimidation.

“On Election Day itself, lawyers in the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section will staff a hotline starting in the early hours of the morning, and just as we have sent election monitors in prior elections, we will continue to have a robust election monitors program in place on Election Day,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in the release. “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.”

Last month, civil and voter rights advocacy groups warned of a “perfect storm for voter intimidation” in the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to safeguard against voter intimidation at the polls and amid Republican Donald Trump’s claims of a “rigged election” and calls to his supporters to be on the watch for voter fraud at the polls Tuesday.

On Friday, the Michigan Democratic Party filed a lawsuit against Trump, his campaign and the Michigan Republican Party, a preemptive strike against what party leaders worry will be Election Day efforts by the candidate’s supporters to disrupt voters in heavily minority precincts. Democrats in six other states have filed similar lawsuits.

The lawsuit claims that Trump and his supporters, along with the Michigan Republican Party, plan to “threaten, intimidate and thereby prevent” minorities in urban neighborhoods from voting in Tuesday’s historic election. The lawsuit seeks a restraining order to stop the named parties from interfering with Michiganders’ right to vote.

“There are only five days left until Election Day. Trump’s calls for unlawful intimidation have grown louder and louder, and the conspiracy to harass and threaten voters on Election Day already has resulted in numerous acts that threaten the voting rights of registered Michigan voters,” the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court states.

Feature image by NicoleKlauss via Flickr Commons