Where the Justice Department is monitoring elections

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division will deploy more than 400 federal observers and department personnel to 30 places in 18 states to monitor today's election.

Federal observers will be watching at polling places in 16 jurisdictions, including six across the South: Autauga County, Ala.; Randolph County, Ga.; and Dallas, Fort Bend, Galveston and Williamson counties in Texas.

Justice Department personnel will monitor voting in an additional 14 jurisdictions, four of them in the South: Seminole County, Fla.; Neshoba County, Miss.; Shelby County, Tenn.; and Harris County, Texas. (For a full list of places being monitored, click here.)

Here is what the monitors will be doing, according to the DOJ:

The observers and department personnel will gather information on whether voters are subject to different voting qualifications or procedures on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group; whether jurisdictions are complying with the minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act; whether jurisdictions permit voters to receive assistance by a person of his or her choice if the voter is blind, has a disability, or is unable to read or write; whether jurisdictions allow voters with disabilities to cast a private and independent ballot; and whether jurisdictions comply with the provisional ballot requirements of the Help America Vote Act.

Harris County, whose seat is Houston, has been the site of considerable controversy this election season. In August, a still-unsolved fire consumed a warehouse storing most the county's voting machines and other elections equipment.

Since then, poll observers associated with a local Tea Party group called King Street Patriots have drawn criticism for intimidating behavior in predominantly minority precincts. Meanwhile, members of the New Black Panther Party -- which was involved in a voter intimidation controversy in Pennsylvania -- have announced they intend to be at the polls in Harris County.

Throughout Election Day, DOJ Civil Rights Division staff members will be available to take complaints related to ballot access at a special toll-free number (1-800-253-3931, TTY line 1-877-267-8971). Individuals may also report complaints, problems or concerns via the Civil Rights Division website.

Problems related to voter fraud are handled by the 94 U.S. Attorneys' offices around the country and the DOJ Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section. To register a voter fraud complaint, call 202-514-1412.

(Photo by Terry Chay via Flickr.)