Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era felony voting law is constitutional, federal court rules

Empty poll kiosks await voters at the Mississippi second congressional district primary election precinct on 7 June in Jackson, Mississippi. Photograph: Rogelio V Solis/AP

A Jim Crow-era provision of the Mississippi constitution designed to disfranchise Black voters is constitutional, a federal appellate court ruled on Wednesday.

The case deals with a provision of the Mississippi constitution, Section 241, that lays out specific crimes that cause its citizens to permanently lose the right to vote. Mississippi officials initially adopted the provision at a constitutional convention in 1890, choosing crimes such as theft, arson, embezzlement and bigamy that they believed African Americans were more likely to commit. “We came here to exclude the Negro,” said the convention’s president. “Nothing short of this will answer.”