‘Our system was overwhelmed’: Huge Mississippi turnout spurs calls for expanded access

JACKSON, MISS. — Mississippi has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country, relics of its infamous legacy of shutting Black people out of power. 

But now, after historic turnout during the midterms, the state has a chance to reform its archaic, suppressive election system, civil rights and grassroots pro-voting organizations say.

“I think now there is a possibility for a better conversation, because it benefits everybody, not just a blue, red or gray voter,” Arekia Bennett-Scott, executive director of Mississippi Votes (MSVotes), told Democracy Docket.

Those reforms could include no-excuse mail voting, early voting and same-day and online registration — practices common in many other states with pro-voting policies. 

“We don’t have any of that,” said Bennett-Scott, whose organization has helped over 100,000 people register to vote or update their registration since its inception in 2016. “Do you know how many college students I could help register to vote — regardless of whether they were white or Black or Republican or Democrat or independent?”

The calls for reform come as Democrat Scott Colom appears poised to unseat incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) and become the state’s first Black senator since the Reconstruction era. Last week, in an interview with Democracy Docket, he also called for reforms to “empower the voters to pick their leaders and not the leaders to pick the voters that matter.”

Colom has suggested several national changes, including making Election Day a national holiday and ending the practice of drawing electoral districts to benefit political parties.

Among the reasons for the new interest in pro-voting policies: The massive midterm turnout has shown what the people of Mississippi are capable of — and the limitations of the state’s election system.

Speaking Sunday evening at the M.W. Stringer Masonic Grand Lodge — a civil rights landmark in the state — NAACP President Derrick Johnson said the surge in voter participation laid bare the state election system’s defects.

“Our system was overwhelmed because voters turned out,” Johnson said. 

But he added that the past week also emphasized a simple solution: reform. 

“Much of this would have been addressed simply by opening up access to the vote,” he said. 

Johnson noted that many aspects of Mississippi’s voting system are relics of the Jim Crow era. For example, he noted Mississippi is one of the few states that do not allow people to vote in person before Election Day. Early voting is an extremely common practice meant to increase voter participation and relieve pressure at the polls. And Mississippi also heavily restricts the reasons people may vote by absentee ballot.

Because of such voting restrictions, Mississippi has consistently had voter turnout rates below the national average over the past two decades.

“All of these are barriers and restrictions that should not exist,” Johnson said. “We must live up to the true creed of what this democracy is meant for: We the people.”

This year, the Mississippi branches of the ACLU, NAACP and state voting groups received several reports from people who registered but did not appear on pollbooks at their precinct on Election Day.

Johnson said those issues may stem from the state’s outdated practice of requiring voters to register through paper applications that they must mail or deliver to county clerks’ offices at least 30 days before an election.

“Technology has advanced. We’re still operating in this state as if technology is from 1980,” he said. 

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson’s office did not respond to Democracy Docket’s request for comment on the calls for voting reform in the state.

The GOP-dominated state legislature is set to convene its regular session in January 2027. So far, Republicans have not announced whether electoral reform could be on the agenda next year. 

Before the midterms, the state GOP was gearing up to gerrymander the state’s political maps to reduce Democratic political power and potentially eliminate the state’s lone majority-Black congressional district.