Justice Department to monitor voting in three Miss. counties

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Justice Department will monitor primary voting in three Mississippi counties that have a history of alleged voting irregularities, it said Monday.

Federal authorities will monitor elections Tuesday in Bolivar, Jefferson Davis and Madison counties "to ensure compliance with federal voting rights statutes," said the department's Civil Rights Division.

Division attorneys will coordinate federal activities and stay in contact with local election officials, the DOJ said in a written statement.

Only two weeks ago the DOJ and Bolivar County settled a lawsuit involving alleged violations of a federal voting law. The court order, signed by a federal judge in Oxford, establishes procedures for the county to follow with regard to provisional ballots, known in Mississippi as affidavit ballots.

The Justice Department alleged Bolivar County had failed to provide a system which allowed voters to determine if their provisional ballots were counted. The rural county in the state's Delta region is about two-thirds black.

Jefferson Davis County, in rural south central Mississippi, is 40 percent white, 60 percent black.

Madison County, which includes Canton in central Mississippi, is 60 percent white and 40 percent black.

- CNN Justice Producer Terry Frieden