FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jackson, Miss. – Mississippi senators today passed SB 2588 after over an hour of debate on the Senate floor. SB 2588 would make it easier for election commissioners to remove voters from the voter rolls. It targets voters who have failed to vote just one time.
SB 2588 is trying to fix a problem that hasn't been proven to be a problem. Prior to passage, Senator Tate argued that it would curb voter fraud in the state. However, he was unable to bring forth statistics to support his claim. There is no evidence of massive voter fraud in Mississippi.
SB 2588 as it stands, is only a serious attempt at voter suppression. If Mississippi lawmakers were serious about cleaning up the voter rolls, they would have adopted Senator David Blount's amendment to SB 2588. It is a serious attempt to fix the process by consulting the Mississippi State Department of Health and the Secretary of State’s Office. These consultations would eliminate arbitrary triggers and ensure registered voters are not deceased or registered in multiple counties.
We’ve seen bills just like SB 2588 create a mess for other states. The Ohio legislature passed a law that allowed their Secretary of State to strip Ohioans from the voter rolls if they failed to vote in consecutive elections, and consequently failed to respond to a notice sent to them via mail. In 2019 a list of 235,000 voters were set to be purged. It was later found that 40,000 names were wrongly placed on the list due to software or human error.
SB 2588 will now move to the House of Representatives for vote. The full House should reject SB 2588.
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