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This was just three games ago for Ole Miss basketball: The Rebels were 8-8 overall, a disappointing 3-6 in the Southeastern Conference. They were coming off double-digit losses to Arkansas and Georgia. They were playing decent defense, but the offense seemed terribly out of sync. Three-point shot attempts clanged away like so many unanswered prayers.

Actually, prayers get answered more often than Ole Miss shots went in the basket. In those losses to Arkansas and Georgia, the Rebels were a combined 3 for 29 from 3-point land. That’s right: 3 for 29. You have much better odds than that in carney games at the fair.

Kermit Davis Jr.’s team was dangerously close to the playing-out-the-season stage. Ole Miss’s NET ranking, a prime component of what it takes to qualify for the postseason, was No. 69 in the nation, far from what earns consideration for an NCAA Tournament bid.

Now then, let’s look at what has happened in those last three games over a span of just eight days: Ole Miss knocked off 10th ranked Tennessee 52-50 on a Tuesday night in Oxford. Then, the Rebels went on the road to defeat Auburn 86-84 in overtime. And then they returned home to crush 10th ranked Missouri 80-59 Wednesday night.

Who were these guys?

The gang that couldn’t shoot straight suddenly did. The same team that shot 3 for 29 from behind the arc in two games a couple weeks ago, hit 8 for 20 against Missouri. The team that had records of 8-8 and 3-6 is now 11-8 and 6-6. That NET ranking has risen from 69th to 56th.

The Rebels are far from in the tournament. Indeed, they are not yet even on the proverbial tournament bubble. But they are definitely in the conversation for being on the bubble if that makes sense. And they are playing by far their best basketball.

What has happened? As you might suspect, it’s far more than the basketball just started going in the basket. As often happens in this crazy sport, the outside shooting game started to click when the Rebels started looking inside first. Specifically, the Rebels looked inside to Romello White, the transfer from Arizona State, who scored 14 in the low-scoring win over Tennessee, and then 30 in the high-scoring win over Auburn.

“Romello is just playing better, posting better, and we’re doing a better job of throwing it to him,” Davis said.

As the opposition sags back to defend White, the Rebels get better looks from the outside. Better looks produce more makes.

But it’s not just White. The Rebels, across the board, are playing better, especially the guards. Off-guard Jarkel Joiner has found his range, which is more mid-range than from behind the arc. And Devontae Shuler, the point guard, is playing like an All-Conference first teamer. He scored 15 against Tennessee, 26 more against Auburn, and 15 more against Missouri. And, says Davis, Shuler is playing much better defensively and making plays without the ball in his hands.

Here’s what some fans may miss with all this offensive improvement. Better defensive play has been the catalyst. So much of the Rebels’ point production comes as a direct result of the defense, particularly the complicated 1-3-1 zone that has been Davis’s bread and butter as a coach. The trapping defense, which often evolves into a 2-3 but sometimes a man-to-man, produces turnovers in bunchs. Opponents have a difficult time preparing for it because they rarely see it, and it’s hard to duplicate in practice. It is almost like preparing for the wishbone in football in that you almost never see it and you can’t replicate it in preparing for a game.

But the Ole Miss resurgence is more than all that. As Davis puts it, “We were never that far away. We were up nine at Florida and didn’t close them out. We were up seven against Wichita State and didn’t get it done. We win those two games – which we should have – where would we be now? I think people would be talking about us probably being in the tournament.”

As it is, the Rebels are still dangerously close to being out. A winning record in the SEC is a must and the Rebels are at .500 now. They play at South Carolina Saturday. The Gamecocks, a team hammered by COVID-19 this season, have played only 13 games and are 5-8 overall and 3-6 in the league.

They are also dangerous, as evident in a 3-point loss to No. 11 Alabama Tuesday night.

After South Carolina, the Rebels have home games left with Mississippi State and Kentucky and road games with Vanderbilt and Missouri.

All are winnable if the Rebels play as well as they have in the last three games. All are lose-able if they revert.

The post The Rebels who couldn’t shoot straight suddenly are hitting mark appeared first on Mississippi Today.

After failing to gain the needed three-fifths vote in a first try Thursday night, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann held the Senate over into Friday morning and it passed a legislative alternative to the medical marijuana program voters approved in November.

Senate Bill 2765, authored by Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, passed 30-19 on Friday morning at about 1:15 a.m. The bill had failed a Thursday night vote, 30-21, needing 31 to pass. The lesser number for passage was needed in the wee hours Friday because some senators were absent, lowering the three-fifths threshold.

Sens. Jennifer Branning, R-Philadelphia, and Tammy Witherspoon, D-Magnolia — both of whom voted against the measure the first time — were absent for the second vote. Sen. Lydia Chassaniol, R-Winona, who voted for the bill the first time, was absent the second vote. Sen. Benjamin Suber, R-Bruce, had been absent for the first vote but voted for the bill on the second vote.

The measure now heads to the House, where it faces an uncertain future. Senators included a “reverse repealer” in the measure, meaning the House could not pass it on to the governor without more debate in the Senate.

The measure would take effect only if the courts strike down the voter-passed Initiative 65 medical marijuana program, which is now in the state constitution but faces a challenge in the state Supreme Court. “Trigger language” was added to the Senate bill in an amendment on Thursday. Originally the measure, if passed, would have created its own program regardless of whether Initiative 65 was there or not.

READ MORE: Mississippi’s medical marijuana mess

The bill would tax medical marijuana, with a 4% excise at cultivation, and with a sales tax patients would pay. In an effort to gain more support, the original 10% sales tax was amended to 7% on Thursday night. Most of the taxes collected would go to education, including early learning and college scholarships.

The bill also would levy large licensing fees on growers and dispensary shop owners. Originally, those fees would have been $100,000 for growers and $20,000 for dispensaries. Those were reduced to $15,000 and $5,000, respectively, on Thursday night. Other changes were made in an effort to assuage those who believed such fees would keep small businesses and farms out of the game.

The measure faced bipartisan opposition, despite the numerous last-minute concessions to reduce its taxes on marijuana and to ensure it wouldn’t thwart the Initiative 65 medical marijuana program that voters passed into the state constitution in a landslide in November.

“The bill in front of you does not replace Initiative 65,” Blackwell told senators before the first vote. “It has trigger language, where in case Initiative 65 is struck down by the courts, it will be enacted. Seventy-four percent of our population approved Initiative 65, whether you like it or not … This bill only goes into effect if the courts strike down 65.”

But Senate Bill 2765 began as something of an end-run around Initiative 65, and until amended in a last ditch effort to gain enough votes, it would have “co-existed” with Initiative 65, or potentially replaced it depending on courts and the industry. Many supporters of the original grassroots voter marijuana initiative decried the legislative attempt to create a “parallel program” as dirty pool.

After years of inaction by the Legislature despite growing grassroots, bipartisan support, voters took the matter in hand in November and approved Initiative 65. It’s a constitutional amendment mandating and specifying a state medical marijuana program. It puts the state Health Department in charge, even though the department and its board say it is ill equipped for the task. It prevents standard taxation of the marijuana, and any fees collected by the Health Department can only be used to run and expand the marijuana program, not go into state taxpayer coffers. Initiative 65 allows little regulation or zoning by local governments and no limits on the number of dispensaries.

The Initiative 65 constitutional amendment also now faces litigation, set to be heard in April by the Mississippi Supreme Court. Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler brought the challenge, arguing the state’s initiative process is flawed and the measure was improperly before voters. Other lawmakers and political observers have opined that Initiative 65 could face other legal challenges — and could be tied up in courts for years.

Some proponents of the Senate legislation passed Friday morning have pitched it as a backstop — a way to stand up a medical marijuana program in Mississippi, even if the state Supreme Court overturns the voter-approved constitutional amendment or it faces years of further legal challenges. Others said it could serve as a better program for taxpayers and local communities even if Initiative 65 is upheld.

The bill’s supporters reasoned that since many state leaders are opposed to Initiative 65, including the agency tasked with running it, and litigation is pending, the Legislature-passed program would provide more stability for the industry. They surmise growers and dispensaries would opt for the Legislature-approved plan.

The Senate plan would have the Department of Agriculture and Department of Revenue regulating the program, not the Health Department.

The Senate stayed in recess much of the deadline day on Thursday, in part because the leadership was trying to whip votes and come up with changes to the medical marijuana proposal to garner the three-fifths majority needed for passage.

Some key issues that led to the bill’s defeat in the first attempt on Thursday:

• Democrats, and in particular the Black Caucus, were angered over the Wednesday passage of a Senate bill to more easily purge voter rolls in Mississippi and were not feeling very amenable on the marijuana push.

• Some Republicans were concerned the marijuana proposal had anti-competitive measures that would favor large corporations and prevent small Mississippi growers and businesses from getting in the market.

• Other Republicans did not want to vote on a marijuana proposal, period — one reason the Legislature hadn’t been able to come up with a program before voters took things in hand in November with Initiative 65.

• With Initiative 65 passing by a landslide in November, and many advocates accusing the Legislature of trying an end-run around the voter approved constitutional amendment, some lawmakers didn’t want to be seen as usurping a grassroots initiative.

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It was a routine honed from 18 years of working at Gulfport High School. Each Monday, around 7:45 a.m., lead guidance counselor Cecilia Zahedi would arrive at her office to find a student waiting outside, hoping to catch her before the tardy bell rang. After the first period, she would usually check attendance, call the parents of no-shows, and field emails from teachers concerned about their students. 

At the first lull, Zahedi would log onto the website for the Office of Federal Student Aid and download a roster of seniors at Gulfport who had completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the cumbersome paperwork prospective college students must fill out in order to receive loans and scholarships. She’d make a note of the missing names. 

Over the next week, if Zahedi saw one of those students in the cafeteria or the hallway, she’d pull them aside. “You have to fill out the FAFSA,” she’d tell them. “C’mon, come (to my office) and let’s make an appointment.”

But that was before the pandemic. Last semester, many of the classrooms at Gulfport were empty. Students weren’t hanging around for Zahedi in the morning. As a result, Zahedi said, the number of seniors at Gulfport who have submitted their FAFSA ahead of the June 30 deadline has fallen.  

Across Mississippi, fewer high school seniors have completed applications for federal financial aid compared to past academic years, according to statistics compiled by the National College Attainment Network. As of Jan. 29, the most recent data available, 2,203 fewer students had filled out the FAFSA compared to last academic year — a drop of 18.3%, nearly double the current national completion rate of 9.7%.

If high school seniors don’t complete this step, they cannot receive federal financial aid to help pay for college, which in Mississippi costs an average of $8,120 a year at the state’s public universities.

Completed applications are down in urban, suburban and rural school districts in Mississippi, but the decline is worse in schools with higher populations of working-class students and students of color. 

This is worrisome, advocates for college access say, because those students stand to benefit the most from federal and state financial aid, like the Pell Grant and the Higher Education Legislative Plan grant, that can only be obtained by submitting a FAFSA. They are also the students for whom going to college can be harder if they don’t enroll after high school.

For students from rural towns or working-class families, “the FAFSA is gonna be your roadmap, your tool for education,” said Arlisha Walton, the financial aid director at Rust College. “It opens the door, it can get you to your next step.” 

A tangle of factors are influencing this decline in Mississippi, according to guidance counselors and financial aid officers. COVID-19-related job losses have pushed some students into working full-time to help their families, while others aren’t sure they want to pay tens of thousands of dollars for virtual college classes. Internet access also remains a barrier for families that don’t have computers at home.

The pandemic has also made it harder for guidance counselors, who normally steward families through the tedious application process, to reach students. Counselors have turned to social media, emails, text messages and FaceTime, but these efforts don’t supplant seeing a student in person. 

“In a typical year, when students are ‘brick and mortar,’ as we call it, I could go into English 12 classes, physics, calculus,” Zahedi said. But last semester, “so many of them were not in the building. They were an email away or a phone call away, but there’s something different about not seeing the kid walking down the hall.”

This is where Get2College came in. Helping students apply for financial aid is a cornerstone effort of the Mississippi nonprofit, which works to increase college access in the state.

Pre-pandemic, Get2College would host FAFSA workshops at high schools and hold face-to-face, one-on-one appointments with families. With COVID-19 rendering that no longer possible, the nonprofit started holding virtual workshops in October after FAFSA applications opened, said Kierstan Dufour, the organization’s assistant director and project manager. 

Yet by December, completed applications were still low. Get2College redoubled their efforts. Since then, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Dufour and other Get2College staff have manned a Zoom room, greeting families that log on before directing them to a break-out session, where they are paired with a student volunteer who walks them through the form. 

One of those volunteers is Quindalin Harper, a 20-year-old psychology student at Pearl River Community College. In the four months Harper has worked with Get2College, he has helped dozens of families complete their FAFSA. A first generation college student from Bassfield, Mississippi, Harper said he likes helping seniors because he knows first-hand how intimidating applying for financial aid can be. 

About three years ago, when it came time for Harper to fill out the FAFSA, “I was scared,” he said. “I did not know exactly what to put down, like what really qualifies you to be a dependent or an independent student, having to deal with the whole tax information thing. You have to know every nook and cranny, so that was really terrifying to me. It was like, ‘oh no, is the IRS gonna come and take me away if I mess up,’” he joked.

Colleges are also seeing a drop in already-enrolled students renewing the FAFSA. At Itawamba Community College, 6,839 students received financial aid for the 2020-2021 school. As of February 9, only 948 of those students have filed to renew their financial aid for the coming school year. This is lower than the number of renewals ICC expects to see by this time in the academic year, said Terry Bland, the director of financial aid. 

Bland is hopeful the numbers will tick up toward the end of the semester, but his office is encouraging students to “come to us now while we have a little bit of an easy time in the spring semester.”

“The longer they wait, the more they procrastinate, it just means they’re gonna be lined up and down our hallway come July and August,” he said, “and that’s what we’re trying to avoid—long lines and long wait times for us to help them.” 

For some students, a major deadline is around the corner: Seniors hoping to qualify for the HELP grant need to submit their forms by March 31. 

HELP pays for all four years of college; Zahedi, whose school has some of the highest number of grant recipients, knows that can be life-changing for students. She has gone to great lengths to ensure that students who might qualify for HELP submit their forms on time. She has knocked on doors, phoned bosses to ask them to give parents time off work to help their kids apply, and even driven families to government offices to help them get the right documents. 

“That’s how important the money is for those kids,” she said. 

Zahedi hasn’t knocked on any doors just yet. For now, counselors across the state are watching the application numbers and, when they can, reminding students that despite the trauma and uncertainty of pandemic times, college is still possible.

“We are in a different place in education than we’ve ever been,” said Lesian Davis, the director of counseling services for the Jackson Public School District. “Not only students but their parents, they are afraid. We want them to understand that they can keep moving.” 

“Any parents or guardians that have concerns, assistance, if you are not sure what to do, please reach out to us,” she added. “We are here to ensure the success of [your] children, our children and anything that we can do to help you, we will definitely extend ourselves to do it.” 

Editor’s note: Get2College is a program of the Woodward Hines Education Foundation, a Mississippi Today donor.

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Dr. Andrea Phillips and other Black physicians in the state gathered at her small solo clinic in Jackson for a press conference on Jan. 5, a day after Mississippi’s general elderly population became eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines.

The physicians wanted to help show other Black Mississippians that the vaccine was safe to take while acknowledging America’s history of racist, abusive medical practices like the Tuskegee Experiment that eroded trust in government health care.

When Phillips organized the event, her focus was the barrier of mistrust among Black Mississippians. But now, more than a month into the vaccine’s rollout for the general population, Phillips realizes trust was not the sole obstacle.

“The perspective we, me and some other doctors, were coming from initially is that we have to get our people ready and willing to take this vaccine,” Phillips told Mississippi Today. “We never dreamed there would be a problem of access.”

As of Feb. 10, 19% of total shots went to Black Mississippians, a group that comprises 38% of the state. During the early stages of the pandemic, the state’s Black population felt the brunt of both cases and deaths, although now both figures are more in line with the state’s overall demographics. Nationally, though, people of color still see more cases, deaths and hospitalizations than white Americans.

For weeks now at press conferences and social media Q&As, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs has addressed the racial disparity in vaccine distribution by emphasizing “trust and access” as the two key roadblocks. In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from December, nearly two-thirds of Black respondents were hesitant about taking the vaccine.

So far, the state health department’s primary avenue for promoting the vaccine among Black residents has been to gain trust through community leader endorsements. On Feb. 1, MSDH held a similar event to Phillips’, broadcasting Black pastors from around the state taking their first doses. MSDH has also worked with county officials, such as Holmes County Supervisor Leroy Johnson, to localize the effort.

Johnson, likening himself to the canary in the coal mine, said he took convincing to get the shot because of a history of premature deaths in his family but also a larger distrust in the government.

“It’s how do you trust the feds, but in Mississippi it’s also how do you trust the state government?” Johnson said. “There’s been no good will between the Black community and the state of Mississippi.”

Eventually, Johnson said, he was convinced by his brother, who’s a doctor, but also by the number of his constituents who have died in the past year. Holmes County, which has the third-highest percentage of Black residents and the eighth-highest poverty rate in the country, also has the eighth-most COVID-19 related deaths per capita in the state.

After getting both shots, Johnson said he’s discussed the experience with community members. But gaining the trust to give someone the vaccine, he said, only goes so far without the supply to back it.

“They ask us, these majority Black boards of supervisors, to get the vaccine in order to show our community that they need to not be afraid and take the vaccine,” Johnson explained. “But then you turn around and don’t provide enough vaccine for the folks who want it. Then your constituency comes at you and says, ‘We’re trying to get it. We don’t believe in it but we trust you.’ And then they can’t get the vaccine. I know that hurts my credibility.”

Dr. Laura Miller, a white physician based in Prentiss who works in predominantly Black and underserved rural areas in Jefferson Davis County, said she saw the same issue.

“We can talk about educating people about the vaccine, but at the end of the day access is first,” Miller said. “If I convince someone to get a vaccine and I don’t have access or a way to give it to them, that lessens their agreement to get it.”

The main root of the access issue for the state overall, as well as much of the country, is a limited supply. MSDH estimated that more than a third of the state, or over a million people, currently qualifies to receive doses. With a weekly supply that’s just recently increased to about 45,000, appointments fill up rapidly.

Since the general population became eligible, a vast majority of the state’s shots have been given to MSDH’s drive-thru sites, which are scattered around the state and located near more densely populated areas. Gov. Tate Reeves asserted that the drive-thru sites have been far more efficient and reliable for getting shots in arms than hospitals and other community partners. In late January, MSDH estimated that more than 80% of the state’s supply was going to the drive-thru sites, which has meant limited availability outside of that system.

As of the first week in February, there are as many as 21 drive-thru sites on a given day:

The reliance on drive-thru sites, though, may be part of the cause of the racial disparity. Dobbs tweeted on Feb. 4 that only 18% of shots at the drive-thru sites went to Black Mississippians, compared to a share of 71% at community health centers and 72% at hemodialysis centers.

Moreover, the locations the state selected for drive-thru sites may also have caused disproportionate distribution, Phillips, the Jackson physician, explained. She and others pointed to the late addition of a first site in Hinds County, which opened Jan. 22 at Smith-Wills Stadium.

“Hinds County until about a month ago had the highest number of cases,” she said. “Hinds County still has the largest number of deaths. Hinds County houses the largest city in Jackson. But more pointedly, Hinds County has the largest black populous.”

Even with the site, she said, “a lot changes when you cross Lakeland Drive,” referring to the whiter, more affluent demographics around Smith-Wills Stadium compared to the county as a whole; Census tract data shows the neighborhood is 89% white with a median household income of $89,704, compared to the rest of Hinds County which is 72% Black and has a median household income of $44,625.

Phillips and Miller both said that another layer to the trust and access barriers is that patients want to receive shots from their own personal care provider. Phillips said nearly all of her patients, almost all Black, go to her to receive flu shots.

“The ideal thing would be for us to have access to it because we know our patients,” Miller said. “So it’s really easy for me to see a geriatric patient, or whether they’re a minority or socioeconomically disadvantaged, to talk to them about it to discuss their concerns and to, if they agree, then get them the vaccine, as opposed to going, ‘Let’s look at scheduling you in the next two or three weeks.’ It’s a lot easier if I can go ahead and give it to them.”

But state leadership said that an increase in the federal allocation will mean a bigger share of doses going to community partners. In January, only about 7,000 doses out of the state’s weekly allotment went to those partners; last week, Gov. Tate Reeves said that number increased to 21,000. In addition, a new federal partnership targeting the racial disparity will send about 10% of Mississippi’s vaccine to Walmart pharmacies around the state, starting this week.

Whether it’s through expansion of the MSDH sites or increased allocation to community partners like herself, Phillips said the state needs to be more intentional about providing the vaccine to Black residents.

“We’re playing catch up now,” she said. “This is not about keeping the number equal. Equal is not equitable. We are failing the minority communities in this state.”

The post ‘We’re failing minority communities’: Why Black Mississippians are receiving fewer COVID-19 vaccines than white Mississippians appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A Mason-Dixon Polling survey released Thursday shows that Gov. Tate Reeves’ approval has risen among Mississippi voters, while President Biden’s has flagged.

And a large majority opposes Trump’s conviction in the U.S. Senate in the ongoing trial on an inciting insurrection charge.

The survey found that 56% polled approve of the job Reeves is doing (up from 50% a year ago) and 36% disapprove. The poll is also in sharp contrast to one by Millsaps College/Chism Strategies last month that showed 34% approving Reeves’ performance and nearly 50% disapproving.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves’ approval rating tanked as COVID-19 pandemic worsened, poll shows.

The poll by Florida-based Mason-Dixon was conducted from Feb. 2-5, among 625 registered voters and asked only three questions: on Reeves, Biden and Trump’s trial. The poll included 46% Republicans, 32% Democrats and 22% independents. Its margin of error is +/- 4 points.

The poll found that approval for Biden, who lost the state in November with 41% of the vote, is at 35%, with 56% disapproving.

It also showed that 62% of voters oppose Trump’s conviction in the Senate trial, with 35% supporting it.

According to the poll, Biden has gained no ground with Mississippi Republicans. It showed that 87% of Democrats approve of the job he’s doing so far, but only 3% of Republicans.

The post Poll: Mississippi voters approve of Reeves, disapprove of Biden, don’t want Trump convicted appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In 1997, I did a cartoon of a monk and a teacher recruiter sitting next to each other at a job fair. The monk says to the recruiter, “That vow of poverty thing is killing us, too.” Since then, teachers have gotten a few raises here and there. But things like inflation, health insurance costs, etc. have eaten into those raises. Those who teach don’t do it to get rich. Most teach because it is a passion. Still, when you see a young teacher working a side job and then going home to grade papers, you have to wonder, “can we do better?”

The post Marshall Ramsey: Teacher Pay appeared first on Mississippi Today.

State Sen. David Jordan, the 86-year-old Democrat from Greenwood and veteran of the Civil Rights struggles, said legislation approved Wednesday by the Mississippi Senate on a straight party line vote could potentially remove “people who look like me” from the voter rolls.

Jordan, the son of sharecroppers who became a nationally known political activist in the 1960s, spoke emotionally from the Senate floor on Wednesday against the bill that Republican authors said was aimed at preventing voter fraud.

“Voter fraud is no major problem in Mississippi,” Jordan said. “I think people who look like me have paid a great price in Mississippi and across this nation to be full-fledged citizens. To bring a bill that could disenfranchise and create problems for people of color to vote and is aimed directly at people like me, people of color, is wrong. We don’t have to do this.”

Senators passed the bill on Wednesday by a vote of 36-16 straight down party lines, with Republicans voting yes and Democrats voting no. The bill now moves to the House for consideration.

The bill’s author Senate Elections Chairman Jeff Tate, R-Meridian, and Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, said the intent of the legislation is to prevent voter fraud by ensuring people who are not eligible voters are removed from the voter registration lists. They pointed out some counties across the state have more people registered to vote than the total population of the county. The voter rolls could include, for instance, people who died and people who moved away from the county and should no longer be on the voter rolls.

“This does not purge you from the voter rolls,” said Tate, a freshman senator and former county elections commissioner. “It allows a trigger for the county to contact those who go without voting.”

Under the bill, Tate estimated that about 250,000 Mississippians would receive a confirmation notice that would result in them being purged from the voter rolls if they did not vote within the next four years or respond to the notice. Others estimated that as many as 600,000 could receive the confirmation notice from county circuit clerks if the bill passed on Wednesday becomes law.

Jordan said the bill was trying to fix a problem that did not exist. During the emotional floor debate of more than 90 minutes on Wednesday, Tate said he was 100% sure voter fraud existed in the state, though he could give no concrete example. Election officials, including Hosemann when he was previously secretary of state, have never provided evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.

Jordan said the instances of voter fraud, if any, were small and not widespread enough to merit the risk of accidentally removing eligible voters from the voter rolls.

The debate comes in the midst of the recent federal election controversy and efforts on the national level by former President Donald Trump and many Republican officials, including several in Mississippi, to throw out the ballots of tens of thousands of primarily African American voters.

Mississippi, with its sordid, racist history of election intimidation and voter suppression, already has some of the strictest voting laws in the nation. The state is one of just 18 that requires voters to provide photo IDs at their polling places on the day they vote, and qualifying for mail-in voting requires one of three narrow excuses.

Mississippi also has the nation’s strictest early voting laws. In 2020, Mississippi was the only state in the nation that didn’t give all citizens the opportunity to vote early in-person or by mail. Mississippi is one of just five states that does not allow no-excuse voting by mail, but in those other four states, all voters were given the option to vote early during the pandemic.

READ MORE: “Practices aimed to suppress the vote”: Mississippi is the only state without early voting for all during pandemic.

Tate said there are safeguards in the bill to ensure people are not wrongly removed from voter rolls. People who do not vote over a two-year period would receive the confirmation notice from the county circuit clerk. Voters would then have four years to return the notice. Tate said it would take six to eight years for a person to be purged from the voter rolls.

“The right to vote contains the right to not vote,” said Sen. David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson who worked for years at Mississippi secretary of state’s office.

Under the bill, Blount said someone could receive a notice right after an election, and then six to eight years later opt to vote, knowing they had registered and not realizing for various reasons they had been mailed the confirmation notice, resulting in their ultimate removal from the rolls.

Blount unsuccessfully offered a replacement proposal that could result in people ultimately being removed from the rolls, but only after their names were published to give those who should not be removed time to come forward and verify that they are a registered voter.

Ohio publicly published the names of more than 200,000 people it was removing from the rolls under similar circumstances, and it was found that 40,000 of the people had recently voted and were mistakenly placed on the list, Blount said.

If the Senate bill becomes law and similar mistakes occur in Mississippi, Blount said people who had registered and had the right to vote could be denied that vote.

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In the inaugural episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor at Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Nic Lott. Lott is a public servant who was the first African-American student body president elected at the University of Mississippi. Lott defeated five other candidates in the history-making event for the state’s oldest university.

He has previously worked under Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and U.S. Congressman J.C. Watts and has interned in The White House during President George W. Bush’s first year in office. During the 2003 Mississippi gubernatorial campaign, Lott was director of youth outreach for GOP nominee Haley Barbour. Following Barbour’s victory, Lott joined Barbour’s administration as senior advisor for communications and public safety issues for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. He also served as an administrator for the Office of Justice Programs under the Department of Public Safety.

Lott is currently a consultant and vows to find ways to continue to improve Mississippi.

Season One: Episode One.

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