MFP Contributor
Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban could soon make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, with the court set to decide whether to hear it on Friday. The court announced plans to consider hearing the case yesterday evening—just as the U.S. Senate voted on a party-line basis to confirm President Donald Trump’s third pick to the high court, Amy Coney Barrett.
With five days to go until the Oct. 31 deadline, Mississippians in Washington, Hinds, Harrison and Sunflower counties have already returned twice as many absentee ballots for this year’s general election compared to 2016. Washington, Hinds and Sunflower each have non-white populations of at least 70%, and states nationwide have reported large jumps in African American early voting turnout. In Harrison County, which includes Biloxi and Gulfport, Black voters make up 26% of the population.
Nine years since the Mississippi gut-punch to the Personhood effort, the possibility that President Donald Trump could replace the court’s late liberal stalwart, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with a conservative jurist has given anti-abortion groups renewed hope.
Today, former President Barack Obama cited that progress and urged the Magnolia State to do something it has not done since Reconstruction: Elect a Black man to the U.S. Senate.
Mississippians who vote absentee will have more protections to ensure election officials count their ballots this year. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson made changes to the process after resident plaintiffs and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit, which the plaintiffs dismissed today in light of a new “curing” process.
More Mississippians have already requested more absentee ballots for this year’s presidential election than did so during the last one four years ago. Mississippi Secretary
Gov. Reeves revealed plans to re-enact mask mandates in nine counties, including DeSoto, Jackson, Lee, Forrest, Lamar, Itawamba, Neshoba, Claiborne and Chickasaw counties.
White Mississippians now account for more confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths than Black Mississippians for the first time since the pandemic arrived in the state in March. Early on, the public-health crisis disproportionately affected Black Mississippians, but since early September, cases have been growing about twice as fast among white Mississippians.
One Lamar County, Miss., high school ordered its entire student body of about 600 to quarantine at home for two weeks starting today amid a series of outbreaks.
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
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The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).
