Mississippi has passed its own version of the SAVE Act currently being debated in Washington. It goes into effect on July 1.

It is called the SHIELD Act because legislators just love hokey acronyms. SHIELD stands for the Safeguard Honest Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy or God Will Smite Thee For Being A Communist Act (SB-2588).

I, for one, am glad the SHIELD Act doesn’t safeguard “dishonest integrity,” which I believe to be the very worst sort of integrity.

An example of that sort of dishonest integrity would be claiming this legislation is needed to prevent our elections from being compromised by non-citizen voting, especially by those godforsaken illegal immigrants who prop up our farm and construction economy.

Just how bad is it, really?

The Heritage Foundation, acknowledged by both liberals and conservatives as a right-wing think tank and policy advocate, wanted to find out.

It turned out to be an embarrassment to the Heritage folks.

An analysis of the Heritage report found that in a database that spanned 40 years, as few as 68 and no more than 85 cases specifically involved non-citizens registering or voting. Most of those cases involved non-citizens who had legal status. Given the billions of votes cast in that timeframe, this represents a rate of less than 0.0001% (one-ten-thousandth of a percent). And if “illegals” make up only a small portion of those 85 cases, the number of illegal aliens registering or voting is comparable to the number of owls who are voting in our elections.

Of Mississippi’s 1.7 million registered voters, a review by the Secretary of State’s office identified only 15 individuals with “suspect” citizenship status. None were prosecuted, which tells you all you need to know.

So let’s dispense with this foolishness and call the SHIELD Act what it is: an unconstitutional effort to suppress voting, particularly among our state’s poor people, 60% of whom are Black.

Consider two people you might expect to encounter in Mississippi:

You’ll find the first person near construction sites. He has no legal status here, but is one of many immigrants employed in construction. His ability to stay here relies on staying under the radar. Approached by a stranger, he is either mute or he flees. He knows registering to vote would expose him to scrutiny. It’s the last thing he would attempt to do.

You’ll find the second person at a senior citizen center, a church or a doctor’s office. She is a 75-year-old widow who is living on Social Security. She had to give up driving a few years ago and doesn’t have a driver’s license.

The SHIELD Act is fixing to swoop down on her.

When someone submits a voter registration application, their information is compared against the Department of Public Safety (DPS) driver’s license database. She’s not in that database, obviously.

So here we go.

To prove citizenship and be able to register and vote, she has to provide a passport or birth certificate.

She doesn’t have a passport – more than 140 million Americans don’t. A passport will cost her $165 (poll tax No. 1). She cannot afford that.

She decides to go the other route. She doesn’t have a birth certificate. It would cost her $17 to acquire a certified copy (poll tax No. 2). When she gets it, she realizes that her name on the birth certificate doesn’ t match her married name. It’s worthless for proving citizenship.

What she needs now is to get a copy of her marriage license, which costs another $17 (poll tax No. 3).

She’s not computer savvy and finds getting the information she needs to be very difficult and confusing. Because she doesn’t drive, trips back and forth to the circuit clerk’s office are difficult. Ultimately, she decides it’s just too hard to vote.

These are not imaginary beings. They are two of many, many people who live among us and share a similar story.

You be the judge: Which of the two is most likely to be affected by the SHIELD Act? Is the construction worker trying to avoid scrutiny? Or is it the widow woman down the street?

Contrary to the cloying acronym, the SHIELD Act is not honest. It has no integrity. It is contrary to our democracy. The SHIELD Act runs out of letters when the truth is exposed.

The poll tax was first established in Mississippi in 1890.

Now, 136 years later, it’s being reestablished.

What’s the acronym for that?

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

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