THREAD—SecState Michael Watson held an event that excluded print reporters to discuss Mississippi's Nov. 3 elections, where masks will not be required.
Watson said poll workers will wear masks but claims it would be unconstitutional to require voters to wear masks. 1/
Watson doubled down, saying that "too many men and women have died for this right" to vote to require voters to wear masks. 2/
Watson said one MS Coast county received 3000 absentee requests in the first three days of absentee voting compared to 6000 total absentee votes cast in the county in 2016.
This is new information because Mississippi does not publicy disclose election data. 3/
Watson said Mississippi has 1.9 million registered voters* and said our voter rolls need to be purged.
Asked whether purging would occur after the election, Watson said that he has the authority to compel local officials to purge voters** and "started several weeks ago." 4/
*Watson's remark that Mississippi has 1.9 million registered voters is also new information because, again, Mississippi does not publicly disclose election data, including registration data. 5/
**Watson's remark that he has the authority to compel local officials to purge voters conflicts with his prior remarks on social media, talk radio, and other outlets that he does NOT have authority over local election officials w/r/t purging. 6/
Current polling on the level of concern about an outbreak indicates among registered Mississippi voters indicates that making the polls dangerous will mainly suppress black and Democratic voters. civiqs.com/results/corona… 10/
An open question in the Espy/Hyde-Smith race is whether @MSTODAYnews will report issues or merely reprint statements from campaign managers, prognosticators, Mike Espy, and Henry Barbour.
Cindy hopes they're too scurred she'll call them a "blog" again.
Or they could report whether Cindy lived up to her word that the Senate's votes on the HEROES Act and the SMART Act would come before late summer "for sure."
QUICKTHREAD: This lawsuit was assigned to Chief Judge Jordan, a George W. Bush appointee who has already delivered victories to voting-rights plaintiffs twice in 2020.
Jordan's assignment is excellent news for the plaintiffs and terrible news for Sec. Watson and AG Fitch. 1/
Jordan presides over the O'Neil v. Hosemann case filed in 2018 over Mississippi's now-abolished rule that mail-in ballots be received the day prior to the election. Jordan initially ruled that the requirement made absentee voting "tight—if not impossible" for some voters. 2/
Jordan set the O'Neil v. Hosemann case for a pretrial conference in May 2020, and the #MSLeg immediately repealed the requirement at issue, such Mississippi now counts absentee ballots postmarked by election day as long as they are received within five days. 3/
Geoff shouldn't go light on Cindy by omitting Cindy's 2018 claim in her 2018 debate with @MikeEspyMS that she is "very accessible" to voters. (Since Cindy insisted no audience be allowed at the 2018 debate, I added my best guess at what an audience's reaction would have been.) 2/
The most recent and relevant precedent for not debating opponents in Mississippi is not Biden or Cochran but Lynn Fitch—who won her 2019 race for AG by refusing to debate @Andy_Taggart, refusing to debate @J_RileyCollins, and refusing to speak with the press. 2/
Jones' mandatory LWOP sentence was vacated after SCOTUS' decision in Miller v. Alabama (2012), when SCOTUS held that a mandatory JLWOP was unconstitutional. SCOTUS explained further in Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016) that juvenile LWOP is only allowed for incorrigible offenders.
The first bill Foster sponsored as a member of the #MSLeg was written to make it easier for counties to impose emergency orders like mask mandates during pandemics and other emergencies. 1/
Under the Emergency Management Law at the time, a county could issue emergency orders only through the county board.
Foster's HB 18 would have allowed county boards to vest unelected bureaucrats with authority to enter emergency orders like mask mandates. HB 18 did not pass. 2/
Foster co-sponsored HB 647, which would create new misdemeanors for offenders who fail to pay tickets in municipal court and/or fail to appear for any proceeding in municipal court. 3/
THREAD—MS House Rep. Omeira Scott made a powerful oral argument for her amendment to an election bill last Tuesday.
Scott's amendment would prevent crowded polling places this November by providing the same precincts Mississippi provided in 2012, some of which have closed. 1/8
Rep. @CJBeckett, chair of the House Elections Committee, opposed Scott's amendment.
Beckett thought Scott's amendment could create expenses for counties, and Beckett made other vague remarks urging the House not to mitigate against crowded polling places. 2/8
Scott began her rebuttal by noting that the federal government provided money to Mississippi to cover expenses incurred because of COVID-19, such as opening recently closed precincts so that voters won't have to wait in crowded polling places this November. 3/8