FEDERAL OBSERVERS TO MONITOR MICHIGAN ELECTION

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department today announced that it will send federal observers to monitor the municipal primary election in Hamtramck, Michigan on September 9, 2003.

Under the Voting Rights Act, which protects the rights of all Americans to participate in the electoral process without discrimination, the Justice Department is authorized to ask the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to send federal observers to areas that are covered by a court order. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan authorized federal observers for Hamtramck in a consent decree between the Justice Department and the city of Hamtramck entered on August 7, 2000.

The federal observers will watch and record activities during voting hours at select polling locations in the city. Justice Department attorneys will coordinate the federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials. The federal observers will monitor the treatment of Arab-American voters to ensure that they have full and equal access to the voting process, and that they are not discriminated upon by poll workers or poll challengers because of their race or ethnicity.

To file complaints about discriminatory voting practices in this election, including acts of harassment or intimidation, voters may call the federal examiner at 1-888-496-9455. At all times, complaints about discriminatory voting practices may be called in to 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 website at www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/index.htm <http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting.>.

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