FEDERAL OBSERVERS TO MONITOR ELECTIONS
IN MICHIGAN, NEW JERSEY, NEW YORK, OHIO AND PENNSYLVANIA

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Justice Department will send 32 federal observers to the city of Hamtramck, Michigan, 28 observers to Passaic County, New Jersey and 52 observers to Bronx, Kings and New York Counties, New York to monitor the general election on November 6, 2001.

In Michigan, 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 being racially targeted by poll workers or poll challengers. Observers were authorized for Hamtramck by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on August 7, 2000 in a consent decree between the Justice Department and the city of Hamtramck.

In New Jersey, federal observers will help the Justice Department in efforts to ensure that all written election materials are translated into Spanish, that the county has adequately trained poll workers to assist voters whose primary language is Spanish, and that Hispanic and Spanish-speaking voters have full and equal access to the voting process. Observers were authorized for Passaic County, New Jersey by the U.S. District Court in Newark on June 4, 1999, in a consent decree between the Justice Department and Passaic County.

In New York, the federal observers will monitor polling place activities and New York City's compliance with Chinese and Spanish language election procedures.

In addition, Justice Department personnel will monitor the local elections in Maple Heights, Ohio and Reading, Pennsylvania, and the elections in the townships of Brookhaven, Huntington and Islip in Suffolk County, New York.

The observers, who are supervised by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), will watch and record activities during voting hours at select polling locations. Justice Department attorneys will coordinate the federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials.

Under the Voting Rights Act, which protects the rights of Americans to participate in the electoral process without discrimination , the Justice Department is authorized to ask OPM to send federal observers to areas that are specially covered in the Act.

To lodge complaints about discriminatory voting practices in this election, 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 Internet site at http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting.

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