Mississippi Legislature Sues to Block Federal Voter Registration Efforts

Mississippi has joined eight other states in a lawsuit seeking to block President Joe Biden’s administration’s efforts to make voter registration easier.

Gov. Tate Reeves, Secretary of State Michael Watson and Attorney General Lynn Fitch — all Republicans who make up the Mississippi Election Commission — filed the lawsuit. They are challenging Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to develop strategies to expand voter registration efforts and report those strategies to the White House. The executive order also directs federal agencies to work with states on voter registration efforts, such as taking action to register voters at military offices.

The lawsuit claims the federal effort lacked transparency. Other lawsuits from conservative groups argue the executive order is unconstitutional because voter registration efforts are the responsibility of the states.

Watson, who oversees elections in Mississippi, has been a critic of Biden’s executive order for about two years.

“From the day this unlawful executive order (EO 14019) was signed, my team and I hoped that this would be another Biden administration word salad without action,” Watson said in a press release. “Unfortunately, that was not the case. In 2022, several secretaries of state and I sent a letter to the administration asking them to step down.”

The Biden administration has not commented on the numerous lawsuits filed by states and other right-wing groups.

But in an online interview, Lisa Danetz, an advisor to the Brennen Center for Justice, a national nonprofit that promotes voter access, said the order “directs federal agencies to provide access to voter registration applications and reliable voting information when eligible citizens are already interacting with the federal government. The order also aims to improve access in other ways, such as by requiring the government to study barriers to voting for people with disabilities.”

However, Fitch said the executive order is a partisan attempt to influence the election.

“We fully support encouraging voter registration and promoting an engaged electorate,” Fitch said. “But putting the full weight of the Oval Office behind an effort first developed by partisan activist groups and then hiding the agency’s actions from public scrutiny is going too far. The law does not allow it. Mississippi does not tolerate it.”

Reeves said, “Federal agencies should prioritize their core responsibilities rather than act as extensions of the Democratic National Committee.”

The lawsuit comes amid speculation that former President Donald Trump may attempt to challenge the outcome of the upcoming 2024 election, much like he did after losing to Biden in 2020.

In 2020, Fitch, backed by Reeves, joined an unsuccessful lawsuit that sought to disenfranchise millions of mostly Black Americans in four states.

The lawsuit claimed, without providing any evidence, that Biden had “less than a one in a quadrillion” chance of winning the four battleground states that helped him win the election.