(LibertySociety.com) – Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson sent a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) requesting that it stop enforcing an executive order issued by President Biden that he believes is an attempt to register convicted felons and illegal migrants to vote. Watson claimed that the March 7 executive order was an effort to employ the DOJ to conduct “voter registration and get out the vote operations.” He said the efforts were intrusive into matters involving individual states and an improper use of federal resources and revenue.
Watson’s letter outlines his concerns regarding the executive order, including how it requires the U.S. Marshals to change agreements with jails by forcing them to offer materials for voter registration and assist in mail-in voting. Watson said that the U.S. Marshals were making modifications to 936 contracts and agreements that would make states and local governments complicit in voter registration of prisoners who may not be eligible. The contracts would also force the DOJ to enable voter registration and mail-in voting for people in the Bureau of Prisons’ custody.
Watson told Fox News that Mississippi has its own voting regulations, even those involving felons. He noted that there are crimes of disenfranchisement that are specific to the state and that the Biden administration likely does not consider those when registering prisoners to vote, including illegal aliens. He explained that prisoners are given misinformation about their right to register and vote in the state, even if they do not have the right. Some people in the state’s prisons are not residents of Mississippi.
Others in the custody of the U.S. Marshals are ineligible to vote because they are convicted felons. In his letter, Watson wrote that jails in the state are being directed to work with certain organizations to conduct the voter registration operation, but that his office had not been contacted. He asked the DOJ to identify the organizations being used by the U.S. Marshals. Watson wrote that he was shocked about the use of American taxpayer dollars and DOJ resources in the effort that could lead to non-citizens and ineligible individuals casting votes in upcoming elections.
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