Southern Poverty Law Center Files Class Action Lawsuit to Restore Voting Rights of Citizens Who’ve Completed Prison Sentences

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The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a proposed class action on behalf of six plaintiffs against Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann in an attempt to restore the voting rights of “tens of thousands” of residents convicted of crimes who have completed their prison sentences.

According to the complaint, Section 241 of the Mississippi Constitution, which the case describes as the “lifetime disenfranchisement provision,” eliminates the right to vote from those convicted of a variety of crimes in state courts. Once an individual has been convicted in Mississippi, the case continues, he or she effectively has no avenue through which to seek the restoration of his or her voting rights.

“Once so marked, plaintiffs, like those here, can never again be full and functioning members of the civic community even after they have completed their sentences,” the lawsuit attests, invoking the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The 50-page complaint claims that unlike nearly every other state, which restores voting rights upon the completion of a prison sentence, Mississippi allows citizens convicted of crimes to regain voting rights through only two avenues: at the behest of its governor or by way of “an arbitrary” suffrage law. The plaintiffs allege the suffrage bill—Section 253 of the Mississippi Constitution—establishes no criteria for the restoration of voting rights, and leaves it solely up to the discretion of state legislators whether to allow a citizen to once again be able to vote. According to the case, the last five years have seen only 14 Mississippi residents have their voting rights restored through the suffrage bill.