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Judge pauses deadline for federal workers to accept Trump's resignation offer; CA state lawmakers take action to enact safeguards against federal immigration enforcement; Study shows air quality disparities from industrial ag in NC.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi strikes a Trump tone at the Justice Department, federal workers get more time to consider buyouts, and an unclassified email request from the White House worries CIA vets.

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During Black History Month, a new book shares how a unique partnership built 5,000 schools for Black students, anti-hunger advocates say ag communities would benefit from an expanded SNAP program, and Americans have $90 billion in unpaid medical bills.

Report: More than 68,000 Mississippians can’t vote due to felony convictions

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Tuesday, October 22, 2024   

In Mississippi, thousands of people will not be able to vote in the general elections due to a past felony conviction.

Research by The Sentencing Project said more than 68,000 Mississippians are among the 4 million Americans with felony convictions who are denied voting rights.

Nicole D. Porter, senior director of advocacy with The Sentencing Project, said the national total has come down since it peaked in 2016 but still, several million Americans are disenfranchised.

"Many of those people are completing their sentence inside of prison and jail," Porter acknowledged. "But many people are disenfranchised living in the community after incarceration. They're either on community supervision, on felony probation or parole, or they are postsentence in states like Mississippi."

The report revealed from 2022 to 2024, only 79 restorations of voting rights were reported in Mississippi, which is low compared with Kentucky during those same years, which reported more than 189,000 were awarded their voting rights, either through pardon or other restoration means.

The report also highlighted racial disparities in felony convictions and reveals across the country, one in 22 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than triple the rate for non-African Americans. She added some Jim Crow-era laws in Mississippi have discriminating practices, keeping many Black and brown people from voting in the state.

"Even though Mississippi officials from the Legislature to the police departments claim that their public safety policies are race neutral, they clearly are not," Porter contended. "Because in the state of Mississippi, these practices have a disproportionate impact on Black residents."

Porter added the report introduced new data on women being marginalized due to felony convictions. It estimates nationwide, approximately 764,000 women make up nearly one-fifth of the total disenfranchised population.


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