Sen. Bob Casey asked for Justice Department assistance Thursday amid reports that white nationalists plan to show up at polling areas in Philadelphia to monitor for voter fraud.
Casey, in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Principal Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta, accused white nationalist and alt-right groups of trying to suppress votes in urban areas with large minority populations.
“These plans to monitor the polls are little more than thinly veiled attempts to suppress and delegitimize the votes of predominantly minority citizens, inflected with innuendo that recalls dark times in our country’s civil rights struggle,” wrote Casey, D-Pa. “These calls are more than wrong and irresponsible; if executed, they could be illegal.
He asked Lynch and Gupta to “provide necessary resources, guidance and support to its U.S. Attorneys,” designated election officers, and county officials to “ensure proper enforcement of election monitoring rules that protect every American’s right to vote.”
“We have come too far to allow a group of white nationalists to intimidate minority voters in Philadelphia or anywhere throughout the nation,” he wrote.