Department of Justice will monitor voting rights compliance in Arizona

PHOENIX — The Department of Justice said it was sending four staffers to Arizona to monitor federal voting rights compliance at Tuesday’s polls.

Personnel from the civil rights division were assigned to Maricopa County, site of voting problems during the August primaries, as well as Apache, Cochise and Navajo counties.

Overall, 19 states will be monitored.

“This year we are using every lawful tool that we have, both civil and criminal, to protect the rights of millions of Americans to cast their vote unimpeded at one of more than 170,000 precincts across America,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement released Monday.

The U.S. Attorney General’s Office had already appointed a district election officer to handle complaints in the state of election fraud and abuse of voting rights.

Many would-be voters in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, faced 62 closed polling sites on Aug. 28 while election workers tried to get equipment set up.

Recorder Adrian Fontes said his office knew the day before the election that contractors who had been hired to set up voter verification machines hadn’t showed up for a run-through.

Walk-up voters reported having to fill out provisional ballots at some locations.

“We sent folks out to every site that was affected, as fast as we could,” Fontes said in September, after his office launched an investigation into the problems.

The report blamed contractor Insight; the contractor turned in its own report, blaming county election workers for not knowing what they were doing.

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