A letter penned by Mississippi’s secretary of state suggests an executive order from 2021 would make it easier for ineligible people to vote. That’s not true. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, immigration and voting rights have been hot-button issues across the country. Recently, those topics were the subject of a letter that Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson sent to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The letter expressed concern that a 2021 executive order signed by President Joe Biden “creates numerous opportunities” for ineligible voters, including felons in the prison system and illegal migrants, to register to vote. “Thank you @MichaelWatsonMS, for leading the charge to stop the Biden administration’s outrageous attempt to register illegal migrants to vote,”Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting , on March 7, 2021. It instructed different government agencies to make voting more accessible by providing more resources to eligible voters. It didn’t “create opportunities” or grant access to voter registration, voting rights or privileges to people who aren’t eligible to vote.it is a policy of Biden’s administration to “promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”Any claims the executive order would allow ineligible voters, like noncitizens, to vote are false, Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School, told VERIF