Justice Department to monitor voting law compliance in tribal areas and Minnehaha County

The U.S. Department of Justice will monitor polling places to ensure voting rights in South Dakota’s most-populated county and three Native American-majority counties on Election Day.

Alison Ramsdell, U.S. attorney for the District of South Dakota, announced via press release Friday afternoon that the department’s Civil Rights Division will monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws in Bennett, Jackson, Minnehaha and Oglala Lakota counties.

The federal election monitors will work with state and local election officials “as needed” on Election Day to enforce laws like the Voting Rights, National Voter Registration, Help America Vote, Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting, and Civil Rights acts. Monitors will also be on the lookout for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires polling places offer accommodations to people with disabilities, and for instances of voter intimidation.

The press release does not say why the four counties were chosen for monitoring. There is a history of voting rights litigation in tribal areas, some of which helped redefine state legislative districts that a federal judge ruled had diluted the representation of Native Americans.




https://southdakotasearchlight.com/briefs/justice-department-to-monitor-voting-law-compliance-in-tribal-areas-and-minnehaha-county/