Errors in a shift result can be detected with a residue-based mechanism, instead of with duplication of an entire shifter. The commutative property of residue computation over a bit string allows the residue of a value to be independent of the actual bit positions when the divisor is a Merrill number. Without a duplicated shifter, an operand that is the subject of a shift operation is formatted to become a multiple of k, where divisor=2k−1, and the divisor is used for computation of residues. The shift operation is translated to a single position shift or a zero position shift. The translated shift is applied to the formatted operand to generate a shift check value. Despite different values, the residues of the shift result and the shift check value will be the same as long as bit groups are consistent between the two. An error(s) is detected by comparing the residue of the shift check value with the residue of the shift result.