Wyoming: DOJ intervenes in suit against Fremont County at-large suit
AP reports: The U.S. Department of Justice is intervening in a federal lawsuit in which five American Indians are challenging Fremont County's system of holding at-large elections.
The department filed notice Thursday that it is intervening in the case for the limited purpose of defending the constitutionality of the federal Voting Rights Act.
Five members of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued Fremont County last year. They claim the county's system of holding at-large elections violates Voting Rights Act by impermissibly diluting the American Indian vote.
The Mountain States Legal Foundation, based in Lakewood, Colo., is defending Fremont County. In its answer to the lawsuit filed late last year, the foundation argued that it would be unconstitutional to hold Fremont County to the section of the Voting Rights Act which prohibits practices that dilute minority voting. -- Feds intervene in Indian voting case