March 31, 2026 Story by: Editor
The Mississippi Senate Elections Committee on Monday, March 30, formally rejected a bid to undo a redistricting plan that creates new opportunities for Black voters to elect candidates of their choice. The decision keeps the state on track to comply with a federal court order that found Mississippi’s current maps illegally diluted Black voting power.
The controversy stems from a 2024 federal court ruling where a panel of federal judges determined that Mississippi’s 2022 redistricting maps violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by “cleaving” Black communities in areas where the population was high enough to warrant majority-minority districts.
The Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP filed a lawsuit in 2022 against the Mississippi Board of Election Commissioners, Gov. Tate Reeves, Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, claiming that the legislative voting maps “illegally dilute the voting strength of Black Mississippians.”
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi’s Northern Division agreed with the NAACP in a 2024 decision and ordered the Legislature to redraw its districting maps to create more Black-majority districts to give Black voters equal participation in the political process.
The panel, comprised of U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan, U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden and U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick, previously ruled that when lawmakers redrew their districts in 2022 to account for population shifts, they violated federal civil rights law because the maps diluted Black voting power.
The judges ruled that the Legislature needs to create more Black-majority Senate districts around DeSoto County in North Mississippi; around the city of Hattiesburg in South Mississippi; and more Black-majority House districts in Chickasaw and Monroe counties.
To remedy this, the legislature proposed a map that adds several new majority-Black seats:
- A new majority-Black Senate district in the rapidly growing DeSoto County area.
- A new majority-Black Senate district in the Hattiesburg/Pine Belt region.
- An additional majority-Black House district in the Chickasaw County area.
In DeSoto County, the new District 1 will encompass significant portions of Horn Lake and Southaven. Historically, these Black communities were split between three different majority-white districts. Under the new configuration, Black voters will constitute a majority, likely shifting a seat that has been safely Republican for decades into the “competitive” or “likely Democratic” column.
Similarly, in District 45 (Hattiesburg), the reconfiguration aims to unite Black neighborhoods that were previously peripheral to larger white rural blocks.
During the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers approved Joint Resolution 1, altering the district lines of Mississippi House districts 16, 22, 36, 39 and 41 to create at least one more Black-majority House district in compliance with the federal court’s orders. Lawmakers also approved Joint Resolution 202 (J.R. 202), revising the composition of Mississippi Senate districts 1, 2, 10, 11, 19, 34, 41, 42, 44 and 45 to create at least two more Black-majority Senate districts. Districts 1, 11 and 19 are in DeSoto County.
Sen. Dean Kirby, R-Mississippi, sponsored J.R. 202. The Legislature’s attorneys at Butler Snow law firm send the Senate’s maps to “mapping experts,” but they cannot tell the Legislature who the professionals are, he told the Mississippi Free Press on March 12.
The Senate voted to approve its redistricting plan, J.R. 202, by a 33-16 vote on Feb. 26, 2025 and the House passed it by a 67-51 vote on March 5, 2025. The House passed its redistricting proposal, J.R. 1, by a 81-33 vote on Feb. 6, and the Senate approved it with a 30-12 vote on March 5, 2025.
The three-judge panel approved the Mississippi House’s redrawn district map. The judges’ decision said the redrawn House districts 16 and 22 align with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and noted the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP, a plaintiff in the case, agrees with the redrawn House map for the Hattiesburg area.
Mississippi’s SHIELD Act head to the Governor’s desk
Mississippi lawmakers have officially sent the “Safeguard Honesty Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy” (SHIELD) Act to Governor Tate Reeves’ desk. The state’s Senate voted 33-18 along party lines to concurred. There is no evidence that noncitizens are voting in large numbers in Mississippi.
The SHIELD Act (Senate Bill 2588) represents one of the most significant changes to Mississippi’s voter registration process in years. The bill mandates that the Secretary of State conduct annual audits of the state’s voter rolls by cross-referencing them with federal databases to verify citizenship status.
“I want to be clear, this isn’t a bill to disenfranchise anyone. This is a bill to make sure that registered voters in Mississippi and the people voting in our elections are U.S. citizens,” said Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England, a Republican from Vancleave. “To many of us in here, even one instance of someone that is caught voting that is not a U.S. citizen throws our entire election integrity into doubt.”
Under the bill, a voter registration application would be checked against Department of Public Safety identification records. If the applicant does not provide a driver’s license number and the state election system cannot retrieve one from DPS, the registrar would have to run the applicant’s information through the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, known as SAVE.
If either database indicates the person is not a citizen, the registrar must notify the applicant by mail and give them 30 days to provide proof of citizenship. The bill lists a birth certificate, passport, naturalization records or other federally recognized proof of citizenship among the acceptable documents.
The applicant would be marked “PENDING” in the Statewide Elections Management System if they do not provide proof of citizenship. A voter in pending status could still cast an affidavit ballot, but it would count only if they provided the required documentation within five days of voting.
The bill also reaches beyond new applicants. It would require the secretary of state’s office to run a yearly comparison of the statewide voter file against the SAVE database. Potential matches would be sent to local election commissioners, who would notify the voter and place that voter in pending verification status until they prove their citizenship. A voter could not be removed solely because of a SAVE match, and SAVE-based removals could not happen within 90 days of a federal election.
If a voter is flagged and cannot provide documentation within the tight 30-day window, they are restricted to casting an affidavit ballot. For that ballot to count, the voter must then present proof of citizenship to a registrar within five days of the election.
- Database Reliability: The SAVE database was designed for verifying eligibility for government benefits, not for election administration. Critics argue it is prone to errors, particularly for naturalized citizens.
- Documentation Costs: Obtaining a passport costs roughly $165, and birth certificates often require fees and travel to state offices. In a state with a high poverty rate, these costs can be prohibitive.
- Impact on Women: Concerns have been raised for the approximately 647,000 Mississippi women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates due to marriage or divorce, potentially flagging them for manual verification.
“This bill is a solution in search of a problem,” said Rep. Robert Johnson III (D), the House Minority Leader. “Look, nobody can point to me one issue of voter fraud in Mississippi that is raised to the level of needing a law. None. I can’t even think of one.”
Governor Tate Reeves is widely expected to sign the bill into law. If signed, the SHIELD Act will take effect on July 1, 2026, just ahead of major election cycles.
Sources: NAACP LDF / Mississippi Public Broadcasting / Mississippi Today
