By Bobby Harrison
Daily Journal Jackson Bureau
JACKSON – A committee would be formed under a House bill to study the possibility of allowing non-violent felons to have their voting rights restored upon the completion of their sentences.
The House voted 120-0 on Tuesday to establish and perhaps recommend changes to Mississippi law, which results in the state having the second highest percentage of felons not allowed to vote. The committee also would be charged with examining “the societal impact” of the felons being disenfranchised.
According to a 2012 study by the Sentencing Project, a national nonprofit organization that works on criminal justice issues, Mississippi has an estimated 182,814 convicted felons ineligible to vote.
Only Florida with 1.54 million felons, or 10.42 percent of its voter-age population, ineligible to vote had a higher percentage than Mississippi, where 8.27 percent of the adult population was ineligible to vote, according to the 2012 study.
Mississippi is in the minority of states – 12, according to the Sentencing Project – where voting rights are not automatically restored for felons either after they complete their sentence or at some point after completing their parole or probation. In two states, Maine and Vermont, the felons never lose their voting rights.
Mississippi is unique in that people convicted of some felonies never lose their suffrage and are eligible to vote even while incarcerated and other people lose their voting rights until restored either through legislation or by unilateral action of the governor.
And in recent years, according to research done by Brian Perry, a political columnist and Republican political consultant based in the Jackson area, it is becoming less common for the Legislature to restore suffrage.
Since 2012, eight felons had their rights restored compared to the Legislature restoring voting rights for 35 felons in 2004 alone.
Rep. Tommy Reynolds, D-Water Valley, said the study committee is needed because “it is not workable to go to the Legislature for each person wanting to get voting rights restored.”
Reynolds said there is a precedent for a mass restoration of felon voting rights. In 1948, legislation was enacted into law in Mississippi to restore voting rights for World War I and World War II veterans convicted of felonies.
“We never did that for the forgotten war, Korea, the Vietnam War, and we have not done that for the young people who served in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Reynolds said.
Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, who will be on the study committee if the Senate follows suit and passes the bill, said, “I think it is a good time for people to take a look at that.”
Voting rights for felons are governed by the Mississippi Constitution, which takes approval of the voters – not simple legislative action – to amend.
The original list of crimes deemed to be disenfranchising has been updated by official opinions from the Attorney General’s office through the years to coincide with modern criminal law.
The crimes on the list via the AG opinion are arson, armed robbery, bigamy, bribery, embezzlement, extortion, felony bad check, felony shoplifting, forgery, larceny, murder, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, rape, receiving stolen property, robbery, theft, timber larceny, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, statutory rape, carjacking and larceny under lease or rental agreement.
The House also has passed other legislation that could significantly change voting in Mississippi. One bill would allow people to register to vote online and another would allow people to vote up to 14 days before the election at the courthouse.
Those bills will now be considered by the Senate.
Twitter: @BobbyHarrison9
