JACKSON, MS. (January 25, 2017) — Election officials in Mississippi’s Noxubee County, long known for corrupt election practices, signed a court-approved consent decree on Jan. 24 with the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU), agreeing to clean up and maintain the county’s voter rolls.
The ACRU had filed a lawsuit in November 2015 with evidence that the county had more registered voters than legally eligible residents and had not maintained its voter rolls as required by the National Voter Registration Act (Motor Voter Law). During at least three recent elections (2010, 2012 and 2014) the county had well over 100 percent registration rates.
“This is the fourth Mississippi county we’ve successfully sued over corrupt voter rolls since 2013,” said ACRU Chairman and CEO Susan A. Carleson. “These cases send a message to other counties around the nation that if they don’t keep accurate registration records, they’ll be next.”
“After years of living under corrupted voter rolls, Noxubee County residents can begin to feel assured that a course correction is underway,” said J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which along with attorney Henry Ross of Eupora, Miss., filed the suit on ACRU’s behalf. “This agreement should help inspire confidence that each vote will enjoy its full weight and value and diminish the risk of fraudulent elections.”
The consent decree, which remains in effect until February 1, 2018, requires the following actions agreed to by the parties:
The county will use Mississippi Department of Health records to identify dead voters on the rolls.
All inactive registrants who haven’t voted since January 2011 will receive a mailing. Failure to provide a current address will result in removal if they fail to vote in the 2018 and 2020 federal elections thereafter.
Former residents must be scrubbed from the lists.
Voters relocating in and out of Noxubee will be tracked using the U.S. Postal Service National Change of Address system.
Progress reports will be provided to the ACRU. By September 2018, Noxubee County will outline the number of ineligible, relocated, inactivated and removed voters.
Read consent decree.