When it comes to cleaning up Mississippi’s voter rolls, the discussion almost always devolves into unflattering depictions of those who are for it and those who are against it.
Proponents are accused of trying to suppress the vote, especially that of Blacks. Invariably the state’s troubled past with voting rights from a half-century ago is resurrected.
Opponents are accused of wanting to keep the names of voters who have died or moved away on the books in order to make it easier to cheat at election time.
Neither of those accusations is fair or helpful. The fact is that Mississippi has a long history of bloated voting rolls. Leaving them that way does invite election fraud, particularly with absentee ballots, and creates other administrative headaches, such as fielding juries. And there should be a way to clean up the rolls expeditiously without deterring any legitimate voter from voting.
The legislation passed by GOP majorities this session might accomplish that objective.
It opens the way for purging more names but not in a manner that is random or targeted toward any political party. Under the new procedures, people who did not vote in two consecutive presidential elections in a four-year period or in any other election in between will be mailed a card asking them to confirm they still live at the same address. If they respond, their name will stay on the books and nothing will change. If they don’t, they will have to vote by affidavit ballot in the next election and afterward prove that they still live in the precinct at which they voted. If they don’t respond and don’t vote in the next two federal elections, then their name will be removed from the registered voter list and only can be restored by registering again.
This is not an onerous standard. If someone has not voted in four consecutive federal elections, a period of at least eight years, they don’t value the franchise very much. It is not asking too much for them to have to go to the courthouse and sign up again.
Mississippi, even without the new legislation, was making some progress on cleaning up its voter rolls. Two years ago, there were seven counties, including Leflore, with more registered voters than adults of voting age. The most recent count, conducted in February, had that number down to two — Humphreys and Jefferson counties. That doesn’t mean, however, the other 80 are necessarily in great shape. Twenty-two Mississippi counties still show that more than 90% of adults who live in these counties are registered to vote. The U.S. average is less than 70%.
There is more work to be done, and the new procedures should gradually and fairly help move the process forward.
