“Mississippi is among the very few states that refuses to modernize the voter registration process and adopt online voter registration,” Drs. Merivaki, Baker and Chamberlain write. “This policy is now used in 42 states and Washington, D.C., so it’s unclear where the resistance comes from.”
Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson says he may be a victim of “a hatchet job” after the Mississippi Free Press reported on his warnings against registering “uninformed” and “woke college students” to vote.
Last week, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson made disparaging comments about college and university students and their capacity to exercise their constitutional right to vote. As Mississippi college professors and advocates for good government, we are disappointed by Secretary Watson’s statements and condemn them in no uncertain terms.
After drawing national headlines for suggesting that registering “woke” and “uninformed” college students to vote would be bad for the nation, Mississippi’s top elections official is expressing some regret.
Election officials are busily trying to recruit younger volunteers to staff the United States’ roughly 230,000 polling sites on Election Day in November. Many of the nation’s poll workers are reluctant to work during the pandemic because they are, overwhelmingly, older and at high risk of severe COVID-19 infection.
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).