Governor Tate Reeves has signed HB 1510, which expands the process of voter registration, as well as supplies additional funds to local election offices to carry out the changes. When registering to vote in Mississippi, a registrar's office will now check to verify if someone is a citizen, and proof must be provided if there is an error. Governor Reeves says this measure should increase election security.
Reeves says “There will be those on the left who will claim that we are making it harder for American citizens to vote. Those claims are false. No one will be denied an opportunity to cast a ballot. If eligibility is questioned, the voter will have five days to prove citizenship. And if you are a citizen of our great country, you will be able to vote in Mississippi.”
But voting rights advocates disagree. Mississippians are already required to show a valid form of identification when voting. Nsombi Lambright is Executive Director of One Voice, a group that helps register voters and encourages political engagement. She says this new law seems redundant and could make it more difficult to register voters in the state.
“And so it continues to raise that question about who belongs here. We already had a voter ID rule on the books, and so that should have been enough,” says Lambright. “Now, the poll workers now have to raise that question of ‘Okay are you really a citizen or not?’ Totally unnecessary and very racist.”
Lambright says lawmakers should be working to make voting easier in Mississippi, not more difficult.
