our guest is john greenbaum.served as a trial attorney at the department of justice civil- rights division. that was from 1997-2003. currently, he works for the legal committee. someone writes in on twitter and asks, what about poll watchers to verify the vote. what authority do they have and do all states allow them in poland places. -- in polling places? guest: some states allow for nonpartisan election observers. as i mentioned before, we are involved in a non-partisan election program. in some states, our people are able to be there to see what is going on. in others, they are not. in every state, you're out partisan poll watchers. one thing that differs between the two groups is what can these partisan poll watchers do? in many states, they can challenge of voters. that is something that we looked at very closely on election day. there are circumstances where it is legitimate to 44 to be challenged. for example, if the poll watcher -- for a voter to be challenged. the for example, if the poll watcher knows t

host: john greenbaum, a senior attorney at the justice department. and the legal director at 40 lawyers right under law. thank you for joining us. that is all for "washington journal" today. we will see u.s. 7:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> president obama and republican mitt romney will be focused on ohio today, one day before election day. it will both be in columbus. president obama will start the day keeping me in madison, wisconsin. -- it will both be in columbus. mr. romney has four campaign stops today. manchester, new hampshire tonight. we are pleased to cover his million shares bought. c-span asked reporters and political analyst what they're watching for on election night, both on the national and state level. here is what they had to say. >> you always watched the first votes that, in. it varies from year to year. i have done this for decades and i care to remind you of. they come in different places. you have to know the history,

. >> john: by the alan parsons project? >> norman greenbaum tainted like san francisco. i'm john fuglesang. i'm filling in for bill press. that's an inside joke if you've been listening for the last hour. we're taking your calls at 1-866-55-press. i had the joy of living in santa monica, california for seven years and santa monica, of course is now at the heart of a heated debate because efforts to force santa monica to reopen spaces in a park for christmas nativity scenes were denied by a federal judge. palisades park for years they've had a life-size nativity scene. pat robertson is losing his mind. >> well, it's -- well, christmas all over again. the grinch is trying to steal our holiday. atheists don't like our happiness. they want you to be miserable. they're miserable so they want you to be miserable. so they want to steal your holiday away from you. >> john: the separation of church and state is not an atheist point of view. lots of people of faith support it because separation of church and state is the conservative point of view. taki