Voting rights advocates say there’s a message for Mississippi in lawsuits the Justice Department has filed over the last two months to block voting-law changes in Texas and North Carolina. The suits claim the changes, including new voter ID laws, would suppress the minority vote. Mississippi is moving ahead with its own voter ID law, and voting rights advocates say the recent legal actions by the Justice Department should put the state on notice that it may be next. “The battle in North Carolina, Texas, they’re not just state fights,” said William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP. “They are state battles that have national implications. If you don’t stop it here, it has the potential like a virus to spread across the country.”
But Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said his state’s voter ID law is on solid footing.
“I believe Mississippi’s law is much different than North Carolina’s and we will pass any constitutional challenge by anyone,” he said.
“We are not going to be discriminatory against minorities in Mississippi … We are not our father’s fathers in Mississippi anymore.”
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