The U.S. Justice Department is dispatching more than 850 people to watch the polls in 69 jurisdictions across the country on Tuesday, focusing primarily on areas with closely contested races or a high number of minority voters.

The number of poll watchers was a record for the department and more than twice the number sent during the 2002 midterm elections, The Washington Post quoted officials as saying on Tuesday.

The department has sent observers and monitors to polls around the country since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 took effect.

This year's effort targeted numerous Democratic-leaning metropolitan areas, including Chicago, Boston, Austin, several counties in the New York City area, the Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale areas in Florida, the San Francisco Bay area, and the Seattle-Tacoma area in Washington, the report said.

Republican-leaning areas were also represented, including Orange County, California; Tuscaloosa, Alaska; and the suburban Houston district, Texas, previously represented in the House by Tom DeLay.

But no observers were being sent to Missouri, Tennessee or Virginia, where three of the most hotly contested U.S. Senate races would play out.

The observers would focus on determining whether or not localities were complying with federal laws forbidding discrimination based on race, disability or language, the department said.

Around 350 people were monitors employed by the Justice Department, and more than 500 others were observers from other federal agencies, officials said.

Source: Xinhua