Republican lawmakers say House Bill 1510 would do two major things. The first section would compare the state’s voter roles with the identification system and immigration database to disenroll non-citizen voters. Part two would codify current national law on voter roll maintenance at the state level. Republican Representative Brent Powell of Brandon says residents will be notified if they are scheduled to be taken off the voter roll and given an opportunity to prove their citizenship.
Powell says “This is current federal requirements. Birth certificate, passport, nationalization documentation, or any method of proof of citizenship established by the federal immigration reform and control act. So this is federal law stating what you can bring to prove it.”
But advocates say this bill would still infringe on the voting rights of immigrant Mississippians. Jarvis Dortch is Executive Director of the ACLU of Mississippi. He says Texas lawmakers passed a similar bill to purge immigrant voter rolls, however, it was prevented by the courts in 2019 and has not functioned since.
Dortch says “You don’t want someone to show up, wait a couple hours to vote because Mississippi makes it so difficult to vote, and then find out they’re not on the voting roll. At best, they have to vote by affidavit. And in addition to that, if you’re put on inactive status you also are not going to be called to jury duty. Having a diverse jury pool is very important in a state like Mississippi.”
Mississippi voters are already required to show proof of identity when voting. Originally, the bill had language that would automatically remove someone from the voter rolls if they have not voted within two election cycles, but this was removed in a strike all amendment.
