Democrats in both the Mississippi House and Senate have opposed the measure, calling it a bad bill that could create more trouble for voters than it solves.
As President Donald Trump (R) is pushing congressional Republicans to pass the SAVE Act that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship at the time of registration and a photo ID when casting a ballot, state lawmakers in Mississippi are taking steps to pass the SHIELD Act to verify citizenship of voters on state rolls. Mississippi already requires voter ID.
Versions of the Safeguard Honest Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy, or SHIELD, Act passed in the Mississippi Senate and House of Representatives early in this year’s legislative session. The House version died in the Senate, without being taken up in committee. The Senate version, however, has now been amended in the House to include the House language.
State Rep. Noah Sanford (R), chairman of the House Apportionment and Elections Committee, amended SB 2588 last week, which was authored by his counterpart in the Senate, State Senator Jeremy England (R), chairman of the Senate Elections Committee.
Sanford said the strike-all version of the Senate bill is “identical” to the House bill that passed the chamber by a vote of 80 to 38.
Under the Republican-backed measure, voter registrations would be put into the Statewide Elections Management System, or SEMS, where the application would be compared with the Department of Public Safety driver’s license and identification information. If that check shows that the applicant is not a citizen or if there is a concern with the applicant’s citizenship status, the applicant’s information would be entered into the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, SAVE is an online service for registered federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local government agencies to verify immigration status and U.S. citizenship of applicants seeking benefits or licenses administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Should the information return showing the applicant is not a citizen, the applicant would be notified and given 30 days to provide proof of citizenship. Proof of citizenship could be determined by providing a birth certificate, passport, U.S. naturalization documentation, or any document or method of proof of citizenship established by the Federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
“This is the means by which we would ensure that people who do not provide their driver’s license but provide their social security number are verified as being U.S. citizens prior to being registered to vote,” Sanford told the House before the measure passed again in the chamber, this time by a vote of 80 to 41.
The bill would also require the Secretary of State to annually check Mississippi’s SEMS records
against the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service’s SAVE database “no later than one hundred eighty (180) days before a regularly scheduled federal general election.” Any potential ineligible matches would be shared with local election officials who would then send notices to voters.
The legislation does state that a removal of a voter “may not occur solely based on a SAVE match. Cancellation may occur only upon failure to respond or confirmation of ineligibility” which must not occur within 90 days of a federal election.
SB 2588 in its amended version now heads back to the Senate where the original bill passed 33 to 17.
When the Senate bill was initially debated in the chamber, State Senator David Blount (D) spoke against the measure, saying, “It’s a bad bill.” Democrats in both the House and Senate by and large have voted against both versions of the SHIELD Act.
“This is not what we need to do,” Blount told the Senate, noting Senator England’s remarks that when a review was undertaken by the Secretary of State’s office of the 1.7 million registered voters in Mississippi 15 people were identified with suspect citizenship status, with some being mistakenly flagged.
“I’m not aware of any case brought by any prosecutor in Mississippi for non-citizen voting,” Blount said. “I hear again and again this statement, ‘Well, just one vote’s too many.’ Well, I agree with that, but I also believe purging one person who shouldn’t be purged that’s too many.”
-- Article credit to Frank Corder for the Magnolia Tribune --
