MFP Contributor
Four new lawmakers are joining the Mississippi Legislature after voters in two House districts and two Senate districts voted in special elections to fill the vacant seats on Thursday. Though the candidates appeared on the ballot with no party identification because state special elections are non-partisan, they did share their party allegiance on the campaign trail.
Voters will elect new state lawmakers in special elections for two Mississippi House seats and two Mississippi Senate seats on Tuesday, Oct. 13.
The number of Mississippi nursing homes with active COVID-19 outbreaks is once again trending upward after declining for two months. The Mississippi State Department of Health reported outbreaks in 128 nursing homes Sunday, up from 121 on Sept. 30.
The day before President Donald Trump announced Amy Coney Barrett as his U.S. Supreme Court pick, U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith told a radio host that Republican senators would come with “guns loaded” and “packed” to ensure the president’s nominee is confirmed.
Southwest Mississippi could suffer flooding and wind gusts as high as 80 miles per hour after Hurricane Delta makes landfall on Louisiana’s coast on Friday. Weather models expect the storm to then travel along an eastward curve into the Magnolia State.
Less than a week after Gov. Tate Reeves ended his statewide mask mandate, COVID-19 cases are spiking across Mississippi, and hospitalizations are once again on the rise. K-12 schools also reported identifying a record number of new cases and quarantining more students, teachers and staff than in any single week.
Mississippians will not be required to wear masks as they enter polling places on Election Day—but poll workers may ask masked voters to momentarily remove their masks to verify their identities. The mask rules are part of a set of COVID-19 “Polling Place Safety” rules that Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson’s office formalized this week.
When Gov. Tate Reeves announced last week that he would not renew an executive order requiring Mississippians to wear masks in public places last week, he said he would “trust the majority of the people of Mississippi to do the right thing.” Most Mississippians would continue wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, he said.
Mississippi voters could have the opportunity to begin voting in person on absentee ballots with no excuse necessary if the Legislature adopts a bill a bipartisan group of three Mississippi House representatives proposed today. Without changes, most Mississippi voters will have to vote in person on Election Day with few exceptions—and without a statewide mask mandate in place as of the governor’s decision yesterday.
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