Arizona's Primary Voting Was Such A Mess That DOJ Is Opening An Investigation | ThinkProgress

Arizona's Primary Voting Was Such A Mess That DOJ Is Opening An Investigation | ThinkProgress:



click link



snip

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation to find out why voters were forced to wait up to five hours to vote in Maricopa County, Arizona’s presidential primary last month, an issue that only existed because the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 2013.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to the largest county in the state on Monday, demanding that it provide information so that the government can determine if the county complied with federal voting rights statutes. This appears to be the first major DOJ investigation into election issues since the presidential primary season began.

Before the Supreme Court eliminated the requirement with its Shelby v. Holder decision in 2013, Arizona was one of nine states subject to the VRA’s Section 5 preclearance requirement. Any changes to election law in those states had to be approved by the DOJ because of their histories of racial discrimination. Since that requirement was eliminated, those nine states and dozens of others with Republican-controlled legislatures have passed measures like voter ID laws and made cuts to voting hours and polling locations, with the intention of suppressing minority voters.

This year, in an effort to save money, Maricopa County elections officials reduced the number of polling places by 70 percent from 2012. That year, there were 200 places for the county’s voters to cast ballots. Last month, for the heated March 22 presidential primary, there were just 60 — one for every 21,000 voters.