ACLU of MS Condemns Senate Passage of SB 2588, the “SHIELD” Act, as Assault on Integrity of Voter Registration Process

The Senate has passed SB 2588, the “SHIELD” (Safeguard Honesty Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy) Act, a piece of legislation that would impose new burdensome requirements related to voter registration processes and expand federal involvement in state election administration. The current language of this bill threatens to impede or even disenfranchise qualified Mississippi voters and likely violates the National Voter Registration Act.

SB 2588 now heads to the Governor.

The ACLU of MS has issued the following statement:

S.B. 2588 requires new voter registration applicants in Mississippi to be checked against the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) or SAVE database, a system notorious for returning incomplete data. If an applicant is flagged as potentially not a citizen, they must provide proof of citizenship within a set timeframe or be placed in a PENDING or REJECTED status, though no one can be removed solely based on a SAVE match. The bill also mandates annual statewide SAVE checks, reporting requirements to the legislature, and makes all related citizenship verification data confidential.

The reliance on SAVE, a system not originally designed for voter eligibility verification, raises risks of false matches, administrative burden on local registrars, and potential delays or barriers for eligible voters, particularly naturalized citizens or individuals with incomplete records. The “pending” status and documentation requirements effectively shift the burden of proof onto the voter, which could lead to temporary disenfranchisement if individuals fail to respond within tight timelines or lack immediate access to citizenship documents.

This bill offers no exceptions for voters who register using the federal voter registration form created by the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC). With no exception for voters who register using the federal form, SB 2588 likely violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which also limits the information requested on the federal form to the minimum information necessary to assess eligibility, and does not require documentary proof of citizenship as part of the federal form.

S.B. 2588 is likely to sweep in numerous registration applicants who are U.S. citizens, blocking registration for qualified voters due to flaws in the relevant databases. Because the data that can be queried via SAVE is incomplete and contains gaps, there will be many citizens whose citizenship status cannot be confirmed by this process, and this group is likely to be disproportionally older Americans and older African-Americans in particular, who may have been born in segregated or under-resourced facilities where births were not consistently documented for purposes of federal record-keeping.

One of the most recent amendments require registrars to not only check applicants flagged through Department of Public Safety data, but also to treat applicants with missing driver’s license information as potential noncitizens and run them through SAVE for further verification.

A driver’s license is not required to vote, and federal law specifically allows voters to register to vote by providing the last four digits of their Social Security number. Using the state’s driver’s license database to trigger a citizenship check is likely to sweep in a very large number of voters—potentially any voter who supplied the last four digits of their Social Security number when registering to vote—and potentially block them from registering and successfully casting a regular ballot.

The primary effect of S.B. 2588, then, is going to be to impose needless barriers on certain Mississippians who are qualified to vote, including older voters who may have difficulty finding the paperwork necessary to satisfy the statute’s terms.

The ACLU of Mississippi condemns S.B. 2588 and will fight to protect the integrity of our voter registration process.