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News Observer
Adjudicated a Newspaper of General Circulation August 11, 1980, Kern County Superior Court Decree, Case No. 16964, Government Code 6023.
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Celina Stewart, the chief counsel and senior director of advocacy and litigation at the League of Women Voters, called Mississippi’s S.B. 2358 part of a trend in laws targeting voter services organizations that assist voters.
“We’re pleased that the Court here has blocked this law to protect the vital work done by organizations like the League and the voters who would be disenfranchised by preventing those organizations from assisting them,” Stewart asserted.
According to the Mississippi Free Press, The Mississippi Legislature passed and Gov. Tate Reeves signed Senate Bill 2358 into law earlier this year.
It lists five exceptions for those who can transmit ballots, including election officials engaged in official duties; employees of the U.S. Postal Service engaged in official duties; other individuals allowed by federal law to collect and transmit U.S. mail while engaged in official duties as authorized by law; a “family member, household member, or caregiver of the person to whom the ballot was mailed”; and a “common carrier that transports goods from one place to another for a fee.”
The publication noted that the law stated that anyone else who transmits ballots and violates the law “shall” be subject to a misdemeanor criminal charge that includes
The other two plaintiffs are Yvonne Gunn and Mamie Cunningham, two local community members who have long helped Whitley by collecting and mailing his ballots on his behalf.
The judge noted in his ruling that Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 says that “any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write may be given assistance by a person of the voter’s choice, other than the voter’s employer or agent of that employer or officer or agent of the voter’s union.”
“This court, however, cannot, from the language of the statute, ascertain whether the individual Plaintiffs who previously have provided assistance to eligible disabled voters for many years clearly meet that definition.”
“This court, further, has not guideposts as to which individuals may be deemed ‘family members’ or ‘household members’, the other exempted assistors,” he added.
“This statute, then, vests prosecuting authorities with broad discretion in relying upon their own definitions of these vital terms—caregiver, family members, or household members.”
Ming Cheung, the staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, called the ruling a huge win for
“We are glad that the Court recognized the federal guarantee to voters with a disability or language barrier to select a person of their choice to provide them assistance. What is important now is to make sure everyone who is eligible to vote does vote in the upcoming elections,” Soussi stated.
Under the Court’s order, Mississippi voters who need assistance due to disability, blindness, or inability to read or write may select a person of their choice to assist them with delivering or returning their absentee mail-in ballot.
