Mississippi has broad restrictions on absentee voting, no early voting or online registration, absentee ballots that must be witnessed by notaries and voter ID laws that overwhelmingly affect the poor and minorities, since they are less likely to have state-approved identification. The restrictions have grown even tighter since a 2013 Supreme Court decision blocked many voting rights protections.
“Anything that increases the ‘costs’ of voting - the time it takes, the effort it takes - that tends to decrease voter turnout,” said Conor Dowling, a professor of political science at the University of Mississippi. “And there is evidence that some of these burdens are disproportionately felt by minority voters.”
