DOJ is probing assaults on voting rights, says U.S. legal professional common By Reuters

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Lawyer Normal Merrick Garland on Monday stated the Justice Division is “critically and urgently investigating” how states are altering voting procedures or redistricting to make sure they aren’t violating federal voting rights.

“We’re critically and urgently investigating and analyzing different modifications in procedures and practices, and notably taking a look at all of the redistricting that is achieved as a consequence of the decennial Census,” Garland stated throughout an interview on the New Yorker Competition.

“We’re anxious about assaults on voting methods, assaults from an Web safety standpoint. We’re anxious about assaults on secretaries of state and directors of elections and even ballot staff,” he stated, including he had established a job power to analyze these threats.

Garland’s feedback come only a few months after the Justice Division sued Georgia https://www.reuters.com/authorized/authorities/us-sue-georgia-over-restrictive-new-state-voting-law-source-2021-06-25 over its new election legislation, alleging it infringes on the rights of Black voters by tightening absentee poll identification necessities, proscribing poll drop-box use, and even banning the distribution of water or meals to individuals ready on lengthy traces at polling locations.

In July, the Justice Division additionally issued https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-justice-dept-warns-states-tread-carefully-auditing-elections-2021-07-28 authorized steering warning states to tread fastidiously, citing an “uncommon second spherical of examinations” into 2020 election outcomes cropping up in numerous states regardless that not one of the prior state recounts had “produced proof of both wrongdoing or errors.”

Garland acknowledged that the Justice Division’s authorized powers to deal with voting rights have been weakened, thanks partly to a 2013 Supreme Court docket case that gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act, and urged Congress to cross new laws to revive its authority.

“Are our instruments weakened? Sure they’re,” Garland stated. “However our ardour hasn’t weakened.”