Mississippi cannot implement a “ballot harvesting” law that prevents residents from collecting and transmitting absentee ballots on behalf of other voters, including disabled voters, a federal judge said as he issued a temporary order Tuesday evening. He described voting as “sacrosanct, a right which is the muscle of our republic.”
“Predictably, when a law or regulation threatens this hallowed gem of citizenship, the citizenry fears a potential robbery of a precious right,” U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Judge Henry T. Wingate wrote. “The voting polls are expected to extend outstretched hands of welcome and provide unfettered access to conscientious citizens anxious to enjoy ‘participatory democracy’—whether those citizens be among the vulnerable and the disabled.”
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.”
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Anyone else who transmits ballots and violates the law “shall” be subject to a misdemeanor criminal charge that includes imprisonment of up to one year in county jail and/or a fine of up to $3,000.
But plaintiffs argued that the law is not clear in its definitions, including its definitions of who constitutes a “family member, household member, or caregiver.” In May, the three plaintiffs sued the State with the help of Disability Rights Mississippi, the Mississippi Center For Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Mississippi and the League of Women Voters of Mississippi.
‘Who Is A Caregiver?’
One of the plaintiffs is William Earl Whitley, a Black disabled U.S. Army Veteran from Okolona, Miss., who lost both legs in Vietnam. The other two plaintiffs are Yvonne Gunn
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