Governor Tate Reeves Signs SHIELD Act: Citizenship Verification for Voter Registration and Annual Voter Roll Audits
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced on Wednesday, October 21, that he has signed the SHIELD Act (Senate Bill 2588), formally the Safeguard Honesty Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy Act, further tightening the state's election procedures.
The legislation, authored by State Senator Jeremy England, a Republican, requires local officials to verify the U.S. citizenship of persons registering to vote and requires Mississippi to conduct an annual audit of its voter rolls to ensure that only American citizens are voting. If a registrant is not in the Department of Public Safety's system, or indicated non-resident status when registering, the state will verify citizenship through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.
'We will continue to do everything in our power to make it infinitely harder, with a goal to make it impossible, to cheat in our elections,' Reeves said. 'We will always put American citizens first.'
Mississippi Democrats have opposed the measure, calling it 'a poll tax by another name.' State Democratic Party Chairman and State Representative Cheikh Taylor said there is no voter fraud crisis in Mississippi but rather a participation crisis, that the SHIELD Act is a poll tax dressed up in modern language, and that Mississippi Democrats will fight it with everything they have.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 密西西比州议会大厦（Jackson），作者 Michael Barera，CC BY-SA 4.0，来源 Wikimedia Commons
