US Justice Department to dispatch fewer election observers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Department officials are warning that they will be dispatching fewer specially trained election observers this year as a result of a Supreme Court opinion that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

In a video being released Wednesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that though the court's decision had reined in the Justice Department's power, the government would work to "ensure that every voter can cast his or her ballot free of unlawful intimidation, discrimination, or obstruction."

The federal observer program has provided an important safeguard during previous elections, especially in places that tried to suppress the votes of blacks, Latinos and other minorities, said Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

In past elections, for example, observers were sent to Greensboro, Alabama, after white election officials tried to deny access to black voters and to Pike County, Georgia, when an after-hours voter registration session was open to whites only.

The opinion opened the door to state law changes decried by voting rights advocates, including stringent new voter ID requirements.