Why Mississippi voters were removed from voter rolls

Key Points:

• Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson faced criticism for using unverified Experian credit bureau data to inactivate over 230,000 voters before the midterm elections, leading to eligible voters being wrongly removed from rolls and facing difficulties at the polls.
• A coalition of civil rights groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and ACLU of Mississippi, warned Watson to reinstate affected voters before Election Day and ensure affidavit ballots were available, but the office did not comply or respond to these demands.
• Election Day saw confusion and frustration as many voters found themselves inactive and had to cast affidavit ballots, with some leaving without voting; local election officials blamed the inaccurate data provided by the Secretary of State’s office, which had contracted Experian despite known data reliability issues.
• The use of commercial data for voter roll maintenance, a departure from traditional government sources, has raised concerns about election integrity and voter disenfranchisement, especially with upcoming purges of inactive voters who fail to re-register or vote within two federal elections.
• Following the backlash, Watson’s office ended its partnership with Experian and switched to a different data vendor, but voting rights advocates remain skeptical about the reliability of commercial data and call for systemic improvements in Mississippi’s election administration.