Fact Sheet: Protecting Voting Rights
and Prosecuting Voter Fraud

The Department of Justice plays a limited, but important, role with respect to elections.  The Justice Department’s Criminal and Civil Rights Divisions enforce specific federal laws that help to ensure that all qualified voters have an opportunity to cast their ballots and have them counted.  More specifically, the Department is responsible for enforcing federal laws that help prevent and punish fraud and other assaults on the integrity of the election process for federal elections; for ensuring compliance with the Voting Rights Act, including preventing discrimination and voter intimidation; and for protecting the voting rights of servicemembers and overseas citizens, as well as voters with disabilities.  

“The right to vote, and to have that vote count, is absolutely central to the existence of freedom,” said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.  “As the Supreme Court has characterized it, the right to vote is the ‘preservative of every other right.’  The Department of Justice is committed to both ballot access and ballot integrity and together these ensure that elections reflect the will of the people, which is the foundation of our great Nation.”  

The Justice Department has led a major enforcement effort to assure compliance with the Voting Rights Act and other federal laws that protect American voters.  During this administration, the Voting Section has broken new ground, filing the majority of all cases ever filed under the minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the bulk of all cases ever filed under Section 208 of the Act, which guarantees voters the right to obtain assistance in voting.
 
Civil Rights Division Election Day Program:

            For decades, the Justice Department has conducted an Election Day program to help protect the rights of eligible voters to cast their votes.  On Election Day, the Civil Rights Division will implement a comprehensive program to help ensure ballot access.  

• Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Justice Department has regularly sent federal observers and monitors around the country to protect the rights of all voters, including minority voters and voters who need assistance at the polls.  This year, the Civil Rights Division will coordinate the deployment of hundreds of federal government employees in counties, cities and towns across the country to ensure access to the polls as required by our nation’s civil rights laws.

• On Nov. 7, 2006, the Department of Justice will send a record number of federal personnel for a midterm election, including hundreds of Justice Department employees, to over 65 cities or counties in approximately 20 states to monitor the elections.  

• In identifying locations where federal monitors may be needed, the Civil Rights Division has sought out the views of many organizations, including advocacy groups for minority voters and voters with disabilities, as well as state and local officials.  

• On Election Day, voters will be able to file complaints online on the Voting Section home page http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/index.htm.  Civil Rights Division personnel will be available at a specially staffed toll free number, 1-800-253-3931, to receive complaints, and on a dedicated TTY line, 1-888-305-3228, that will be operational beginning Nov. 1, 2006.   

• The Civil Rights Division’s efforts to ensure voter access in accordance with federal law included training a responsible official, the District Election Officials (DEOs), in every U.S. Attorney’s Office across the country on ballot access laws.  The process began in 2002 through the Attorney General’s Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative.  The DEOs receive annual training on these issues in Washington, D.C., and are better prepared to recognize and remediate federal ballot access issues that they may receive on Election Day.

• The Civil Rights Division’s commitment to ensuring voter access has resulted in an unprecedented scope of observer and monitor coverage during the past six years.  Moreover, a majority of all federal court orders providing for federal observers were obtained or extended by this administration.  

• The Civil Rights Division enforces the Voting Rights Act; the National Voter Registration Act; the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act; and the Help America Vote Act.  Among other things, these laws prohibit discrimination or intimidation based on race or language; mandate the availability of voter assistance; require minority language election materials in certain jurisdictions; provide for accessible election machines for voters with disabilities and absentee ballots for servicemembers and voters abroad; and require states to ensure that citizens can register at drivers license offices and other state agencies and also ensure that their voter rolls are accurate.  

The Attorney General’s Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative:

The Attorney General’s Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative was created in October 2002 to increase the Department’s ability to deter election fraud and discrimination at the polls, and to prosecute these offenses – to make voting easier and cheating harder.  It is imperative that in pursuing voting integrity, ballot access is not in any way diminished or harmed.

• On Election Day, the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division will have federal prosecutors readily available to receive complaints and take any appropriate action.  When the polls open, the Department of Justice – both in Washington, D.C. and in the states – will be available to handle complaints and open investigations.

• District Election Officers have been designated and will be available in each U.S. Attorneys’ district to receive and handle any complaints received from the public. 

• The Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section has assigned attorneys to assist with potential election crimes.  Lawyers with the section will be on duty from the time the polls open on the east coast until the time they close on the west coast to provide consultation and coordination with the DEOs.

• The Justice Department enforces laws that prohibit voter intimidation, voting by ineligible individuals, bribery, destruction of valid ballots or registrations, counting more votes than there are registered voters, altering vote tallies, voting in multiple counties, abuse of absentee ballots, malfeasance by election officials, the disappearance of ballot boxes, furnishing fraudulent voter registration forms to election registrars, and forging the names of voters on absentee ballot materials.  

• Since the Attorney General’s Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative was launched in 2002, more than 120 individuals have been charged with election fraud offenses.  Eighty-six people have been convicted of voter fraud in that time frame.

• Nearly 300 election fraud investigations have been started since the initiative began in 2002.  There are now approximately 200 investigations ongoing throughout the country.

###

06-738