Electronic pollbooks; allow to include list of inactive voters when affidavit ballots are available.
Summary
Senate Bill 2640 amends Mississippi election law governing pollbooks and the Statewide Elections Management System. The bill keeps the existing requirement that qualified voters be entered into the statewide system and that voters who are legally disqualified be removed from the voter roll and county pollbooks. It also preserves the current rule that only voters who register within 30 days of an election appear on that election’s pollbooks.
The main change is for precincts that use electronic pollbooks: those pollbooks would be allowed to include a list of inactive registered voters who were previously active but were moved to inactive status under existing voter-status procedures. The bill specifies that inactive voters are not treated the same as removed voters; they may not vote normally, but may cast an affidavit ballot, which must be accepted and counted under the existing affidavit-ballot procedure in Section 23-15-573. The act would take effect July 1, 2025.
Impact
The bill would amend Section 23-15-125 of the Mississippi Code to expressly authorize electronic pollbooks to display inactive voters, while continuing to exclude voters who have been purged for death, felony disenfranchisement, removal from the jurisdiction, failure to comply with voter maintenance requirements, or other legal disqualification. In practice, it affects county election officials, precinct workers, and voters whose registration status has been changed from active to inactive, by clarifying that those voters can still be processed at the polls through affidavit ballots. It does not change the rules for voter registration deadlines or the grounds for removal from the voter roll, but it does expand what information may appear in electronic pollbooks and how inactive voters are handled on Election Day.
Sentiment
The available record suggests a generally administrative and procedural bill rather than a highly partisan one. The caption and text indicate the measure is intended to improve election administration by allowing electronic pollbooks to better reflect inactive voters while preserving safeguards through affidavit-ballot procedures. No committee transcript or vote record is provided, so there is no documented debate or recorded opposition in the materials supplied.
Contention
The main policy issue embedded in the bill is how to balance voter access with voter-roll accuracy. Supporters would likely view the change as a practical update for counties using electronic pollbooks, because it helps poll workers identify inactive voters and route them to the affidavit-ballot process instead of turning them away. Potential concerns would center on election integrity, administrative burden, and whether including inactive voters in electronic pollbooks could create confusion at the precinct level; however, the bill attempts to address that by excluding purged voters and limiting inactive voters to affidavit ballots only.