A to Z

Federal civil rights observers coming to AZ for Election Day

By: Jim Small - November 5, 2018 12:13 pm

Photo by Theresa Thompson | Flickr/CC BY 2.0

The U.S. Department of Justice is deploying personnel from its Civil Rights Division to four Arizona counties tomorrow to “monitor for compliance with… federal voting rights laws.”

In a press release today, DOJ said it would be sending people to 35 jurisdictions in 19 states. In Arizona, officials will be overseeing Election Day activities in Apache, Cochise, Maricopa and Navajo counties.

Among other things, the DOJ workers will observe whether voters are subject to different voting qualifications or procedures on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group, and whether the counties are complying with the language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.

Jim Small

Jim Small is a native Arizonan and has covered state government, policy and politics since 2004, with a focus on investigative and in-depth policy reporting, first as a reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times, then as editor of the paper and its prestigious sister publications. He has also served as the editor and executive director of the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.