WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said on Monday that it would deploy more than 500 people to monitor Election Day practices and guard against intimidation and disruptions in 28 states today, including in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny, Lehigh and Philadelphia counties.
The number is a sharp decrease from the 2012 presidential election, when the Justice Department had more than 780 personnel in place on Election Day at the close of what was a much less tumultuous campaign.
Officials placed blame for the shrinking federal presence on a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that limited their ability under the Voting Rights Act to deploy observers in jurisdictions — mainly in the South — with a history of voting discrimination.
In announcing the assignment of monitors and observers, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said, “We will continue to have a robust election monitors program in place on Election Day.” She said the 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.”
The Justice Department said it would have personnel in 67 jurisdictions to look for signs that anyone is being hindered from voting because of race, ethnicity, language, disability or other criteria.
The department’s Civil Rights Division will also have a hotline to field complaints of discrimination or voting problems (1-800-253-3931 or 202-307-2767, or TTY 202-305-0082).
The Justice Department is deploying both Election Day observers — inside the polling places — and monitors, who remain outside the polling places unless local voting officials agree to allow them inside. The department did not give a breakdown between the two groups of the more than 500 personnel it is deploying.
Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division, said that “we work closely and cooperatively with jurisdictions around the country to ensure that trained personnel are able to keep an eye on the proceedings from an immediate vantage point.”
Donald Trump has repeatedly warned of what he said could be a “rigged” election, charging that illegal immigrants and others who are not eligible to vote could turn out in large numbers; he has urged supporters to monitor polls on their own.
For their part, Democrats say the divisive climate could intimidate legitimate voters, and that evidence of actual voter fraud is minimal.
In a letter last week to Ms. Lynch, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said he was troubled by reports that a white nationalist group planned to monitor polls in Philadelphia with surveillance cameras and other tactics. He said these plans “are little more than thinly veiled attempts to suppress and delegitimize the votes of predominantly minority citizens.”
Also, leaders of some of Philadelphia’s black churches and mosques are planning to station patrols of up to seven black men at polling stations across the city.
State elections officials also said they will be alert for aggressive or intimidating behavior — such as “ostentatious” carrying of weapons.
At the same time, U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond on Monday rejected an attempt by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party to restrict the behavior of Trump supporters at polling places today, criticizing the last-minute nature of the lawsuit over the claim that the Republican nominee and his supporters are “illegally conspiring to suppress minority voting.”
The defeat came the same day that the state Supreme Court rejected a petition by Delaware County Democrats to order the county to allow 1,160 people — registered to vote by a grass-roots group that is under investigation — to cast unchallenged, conventional ballots at voting machines today.
The federal judge’s decision echoes similar ones in Virginia and in a U.S. Supreme Court case involving Ohio. In the latter state, the justices turned down a request from Ohio Democrats to issue an order aimed at preventing Mr. Trump’s supporters from harassing or intimidating voters.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted on Monday that Ohio law already forbids voter intimidation.
Monitors will be present today in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
But they will not be present in Maine, whose Republican governor told college students Monday to establish residency in Maine if they choose to vote there, and warned that state officials would pursue every legal means to verify that students who voted were complying with Maine law. That prompted critics to say Paul LePage was illegally intimidating voters, and to call on federal officials to investigate.
Meanwhile, amid the local voting worries, cybersecurity firm Upguard has found that three major news organizations — The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and CBS News — tallied “pretty abysmal” scores on key criteria to thwart breaches, raising hacking fears on U.S. media reporting election results tonight.
If voters have a problem:
Anyone having a problem on Election Day should first speak with the judge of elections at their polling site.
If that doesn’t bring resolution, voters should contact the board of elections in their county; the Allegheny County Department of Elections can be reached at 412-350-4500.
Voters also can register complaints with state elections officials by filling out the form at the Department of State website.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Associated Press, The Washington Post, McClatchy Newspapers and Los Angeles Times contributed.
First Published: November 7, 2016, 5:26 p.m.
Updated: November 8, 2016, 4:28 a.m.