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Justice Department to Monitor Elections in Philadelphia
    WASHINGTON, May 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Justice Department
today announced that on May 15, 2007, it will monitor municipal elections
in Boston, Mass., and in Philadelphia and Reading, Pa., to ensure
compliance with the Voting Rights Act.
    Under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department is authorized to
ask the Office of Personnel Management to send federal observers to areas
that are specially covered in the Act itself or by a federal court order.
Federal observers will be assigned to monitor polling place activities for
the elections in Boston and in Reading pursuant to federal court orders
entered in 2005 and 2003 respectively.
    The observers will watch and record activities during voting hours at
polling locations in the city. Civil Rights Division attorneys will
coordinate the federal activities and maintain contact with local election
officials.

    In addition, Justice Department personnel will monitor polling place
activities in Philadelphia. A Civil Rights Division attorney will
coordinate the federal activities and maintain contact with local election
officials.
    Each of the monitored jurisdictions has an obligation to provide all
election information, ballots and voting assistance information in Spanish
pursuant to Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act. The observers and
monitors will gather information concerning compliance.
    Each year, the Justice Department deploys hundreds of federal observers
from the Office of Personnel Management, as well as departmental staff, to
monitor elections across the country. During calendar year 2004, a record
1,463 federal observers and 533 Department personnel were sent to monitor
163 elections in 106 jurisdictions in 29 states. This compares to the 640
federal observers and 110 Department personnel deployed during the entire
2000 presidential calendar year. In 2006, another record was set for the
mid-term elections with more than 800 federal observers and Department
personnel sent to monitor polling places in 69 jurisdictions in 22 states
on Election Day. The Department's election monitoring program also has been
very active in non- federal election years. In calendar year 2005, for
example, 640 federal observers and 191 Department personnel were sent to
monitor 47 elections in 36 jurisdictions in 14 states.
    To file complaints about discriminatory voting practices, including
acts of harassment or intimidation, voters may call the Voting Section of
the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931.
    More information about the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting
laws is available on the Department of Justice web site at
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/index.htm.
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