Suit filed over Mississippi citizenship rule dismissed

JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit accusing Mississippi of using a discriminatory proof-of-citizenship requirement for some new voters under a law dating back to the Jim Crow era.

The dismissal came weeks after the state repealed a 1924 law that required naturalized citizens, but not people born in the U.S., to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

The secretary of state had been running names of potential new voters through a state Department of Public Safety database of people with Mississippi driver’s licenses and identification cards. The new law says that if the public safety database raises questions about citizenship, the potential new voter’s name must be run through a federal immigration database.

Voting rights advocates said this practice disproportionately hurt people of color by flagging them as possible noncitizens.

Two groups, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Mississippi Center for Justice, sued the state in 2019 on behalf of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance and the League of Women Voters of Mississippi.

On Tuesday, the plaintiffs and the defendants, including the secretary of state’s office, asked U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to dismiss the suit. He quickly granted the request.

Naturalized citizens should not be targeted for unequal treatment, Ezra Rosenberg of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said in a news release Tuesday.

“The addition of this new safeguard will help prevent naturalized citizens from being erroneously blocked from registering to vote through no fault of their own,” Rosenberg said.

More than a dozen communities across the U.S. allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

The final version of House Bill 1510 passed the Mississippi House 114-5 with broad bipartisan support. It passed the Senate 38-13, with most Democrats opposed.

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed House Bill 1510 on April 14 and it became law immediately. He said it “ensures that only American citizens are able to vote in Mississippi.”

The new Mississippi law says that if the state and federal databases both raise questions about a person’s citizenship status, the circuit clerk must give notice. The person would have 30 days to prove citizenship with a birth certificate, U.S. passport or naturalization documents.

The law says if the person fails to prove citizenship within 30 days, their name will be marked “pending” in the Statewide Elections Management System until the next federal general election. That person could cast a provisional ballot during that federal election but would have to prove citizenship within five days for the vote to count.

If the person does not vote in that federal election, their name would be marked “rejected” in the Statewide Elections Management System.