Watson: Mississippi elections: Easy to vote, hard to cheat | DeSoto County News

Notice: The next is an opinion column supplied by Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson

Safeguarding Mississippi elections has all the time been essential to me, which is why I made it a precedence in our 2019 marketing campaign for Secretary of State. I traveled the state visiting with a lot of you who expressed issues for sustaining integrity in our elections. Upon taking workplace, we went proper to work to revive Mississippi voters’ confidence and make it tougher to cheat. During the last three years, we have now delivered on implementing many safeguards and can proceed to take action. Fortunately, the Mississippi legislature handed, and the Governor signed into legislation, Rep. Brent Powell’s Home Invoice 1310, which capped off our legislative agenda for our first time period.

Via our work with the legislature, we obtained extra funding mechanisms for enhanced safety and adopted quite a few security processes. To make sure our state elections are being run by and voted in by Mississippians, we handed laws to stop non-public cash from getting used to fund election administration, applied a number of procedures to make sure solely U.S. residents are voting in Mississippi elections, and codified voter roll upkeep practices.

So as to confirm Mississippi has clear Election Day processes, we gained authority for the Secretary of State’s Workplace to conduct post-election audits, required all voting machines to have a voter-verifiable paper poll, and applied a grant program to assist counties buy machines with this functionality. Moreover, we secured annual Elections Help Fund (ESF) will increase to every county plus a one-time $3 million disbursement cut up between all 82 counties to manage elections, strengthen cyber safety, prepare native elections officers, and plenty of different enhanced measures.

Realizing the work that goes into Election Day is far more than only a 24-hour day, we completely reviewed our absentee voting course of and labored to shut loopholes. Anybody who now fraudulently requests an absentee poll software for an additional particular person will be convicted of voter fraud. Many Mississippians in all probability additionally assumed poll trafficking, or poll harvesting, was a prohibited exercise; nonetheless, it was not till this session. Whereas we included a couple of exceptions for relations, mail carriers, and the like, it’s not authorized to visitors ballots in Mississippi.

On the marketing campaign path in 2019, Mississippi informed me what was wanted to safe our elections, and I’m pleased with our work to reaffirm to Mississippians the vote they forged is the vote counted, however we will’t cease there. After including the above referenced measures to safe the vote, we are going to flip our consideration to the exploration of confirmed insurance policies making it even simpler for our residents to vote.  

Earlier this yr, I wrapped up our 82-County Tour on which we met with and listened to our state’s 82 circuit clerks and 410 election commissioners. We heard many new concepts however would additionally like to have your enter as we work to make voting extra accessible for all. I encourage you to achieve out to me or my group to assist us assume via good coverage positions and what is sensible for all Mississippians.

Please be part of me as we work to uphold one in all our best liberties, the precise to vote.