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Departing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told a Congressional Black Caucus gathering hosted by Rep. Marcia Fudge that the Justice Department will use every tool at its disposal to continue the fight for equal access to voting.

(Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer)

WASHINGTON, D. C. - A day after announcing he's leaving his job as U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder told a Congressional Black Caucus gathering the Justice Department will continue to fight efforts to disenfranchise voters before and after his exit from office.

"My colleagues and I are acting aggressively to ensure that every American can exercise his or her right to participate in the Democratic process unencumbered by unnecessary restrictions that discourage, that discriminate or that disenfranchise in the name of a problem that doesn't exist," Holder told a voting rights brain trust event hosted by Rep. Marcia Fudge of Warrensville Heights, the caucus chair.

He applauded an appeals decision issued earlier this week that requires Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to restore early voting hours that had been cut in Ohio and move the first day of early voting from Oct. 7 to Sept. 30.

The Justice Department is also backing challenges to voter ID laws in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Texas and is awaiting a ruling on a challenge it lodged to Texas redistricting maps that it believes were drawn with discriminatory intent.

"We will continue to fight until all Americans have equal access to the ballot box no matter who they are and no matter where they live," said Holder.

Fudge told the group that a report by the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights found that approximately 78 percent of early voting ballots are cast by African Americans.

Rep. Marcia Fudge leads a Congressional Black Caucus forum on voting rights in Washington, D.C.

"We must combat ill-advised conservative-led state legislation by encouraging every eligible person you know to vote," said Fudge, who is traveling the country in an effort to get black voters to the polls. "Every seat in the House of Representatives and the control of the Senate are at stake in this election."

National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial said a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that overturned part of the Voting Rights Act led some states to try imposing obstacles to voting, like voter ID laws he said are designed to "remove the franchise."

He insisted there is no problem with voting fraud, as advocates of the law say, and "it is all about suppressing the vote."

Alicia Reece, a state legislator from Cincinnati, told a Congressional Black Caucus forum on voting rights that she favors a constitutional amendment in Ohio that would set minimum, in-person absentee voting hours.

Ohio Legislative Black Caucus president Alicia Reece said she backs a constitutional amendment on voting rights that would allow online voter registration and set minimum early, in-person absentee voting hours. She thinks that approach should be spread throughout the states.

"Ohio could be what Selma was to the Voting Rights Act," Reece, a state legislator from Cincinnati, told the group.