Here’s an interesting development. The national and state ACLUs have filed a lawsuit about disenfranchisement of felons. It seems that the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 disqualifies certain felons except in presidential elections. They can’t vote in other state and local elections but can for president!?! And it seems that the state officials handling registration have done exactly nothing to permit the registration of those felons for the presidential election. Thus the lawsuit. Here’s the key provision from Article 12, § 241 of the 1890 constitution:
Every inhabitant of this state, except idiots and insane persons, who is a citizen of the United States of America, eighteen (18) years old and upward, who has been a resident of this state for one (1) year, and for one (1) year in the county in which he offers to vote, and for six (6) months in the election precinct or in the incorporated city or town in which he offers to vote, and who is duly registered as provided in this article, and who has never been convicted of murder, rape, bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement or bigamy, is declared to be a qualified elector, except that he shall be qualified to vote for President and Vice President of the United States if he meets the requirements established by Congress therefore and is otherwise a qualified elector.
The ACLU is seeking a preliminary injunction that these folks be allowed to register for the upcoming election. If granted, this will create a situation that the election system is totally unprepared to accomodate: Voters who are authorized to vote for president but not senate, representative, judge, or election commissioners.
I don’t know where this will go, but I imagine circuit clerks all over the state are sleeping peacefully tonight with no real idea that there could be a real toothache looming for them.
This is the ACLU complaint and this is the ACLU motion for a preliminary injunction.
There’s an ACLU press release about the suit here.
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anybody have any idea how many ex-con felons or maybe even in prison felons there are in mississippi?
A bunch. There are 11,000-12,000 (+/-) in the three state prisons, plus 5000-6000 (guesstimate) in 6 private prisons, and quite a few more in the state’s regional pens. I got this from the Miss. Dep’t of Corrections’ website, which is about what you’d expect in terms of missing info, links that don’t work, and such. The info on the private prisons lists their numbers of beds … I used those numbers above. Whether all the beds are occupied isn’t stated, but I’ve never heard of a prison that’s undercrowded.
Low blow:
Reckon this is why Musgrove was worried about being located on the bottom of the absentee ballots?
Just jesting there. But it was too easy to say to let it go.
Is the final clause of Section 241 meaningless? Doesn’t the requirement that the presidential voter meet the “requirements established by Congress” impose an additional layer of qualification, not an exemption from qualification under the Mississippi constitution?
billdees:
Seems closer to how it reads to me than the reading the ACLU complaint suggests, but I’ve not thought about this beyond the language of the text.