Mississippi
Mississippi
GradeB+
Year2025
TierBottom Tier

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Responsive Gov’s Grade TL;DR

The Mississippi State Legislature made a few small, but positive changes to the state’s election laws during the 2025 session. It gathered momentum toward several important improvements to voting — most importantly, early in-person voting — that were broadly popular in the Legislature, but failed when the governor voiced forceful opposition. Mississippi remains one of only three states that do not offer in-person early voting. Therefore, Mississippi received a B+ on this year’s progress report.

Looking Back

Where Mississippi Started at the Beginning of 2025

  • Automatic Voter Registration: No
  • Online Voter Registration: No
  • Same-Day Registration: No
  • Restoration of Rights: Some Lifetime Disenfranchisement
  • Vote by Mail: Excuse-Only
  • Electronic Registration Information Center Member: No
  • Early Voting Opportunities: No
  • ID Requirements: Strict Photo ID

Relying on the Cost of Voting Index for Mississippi as of 2024, we considered the state a bottom tier state for pre-existing voting policy and compared its 2025 activity against other bottom tier states.

How Our Tier Compares

  • COVI (2024): 50th
  • EPI Score (2022): 51st

2025: This Past Year

Legislative Action

The Mississippi State Legislature passed a few small positive reforms this past session.

  • HB 1419 prohibits polling place locations from being changed within 60 days of an election unless special circumstances require it.
  • HB 724 makes it a crime for someone assisting a voter to “willfully” fail to submit the voter’s ballot with the intent that the ballot would not be cast and counted.
  • HB 289 shifts the terms for election commissioner elections to align them with existing even-year elections.
  • Unfortunately, despite legislative support for establishing in-person early voting, this year as SB 2564, it failed to become law due to the governor’s continued opposition to the commonsense pro-voter reform.

    • Executive Action

  • Secretary of State Watson launched the “TextMyGov” system that allows voters to access election information and report issues via text.
  • Earlier this year, Secretary Watson announced a new partnership with Experian, the credit reporting agency, for list maintenance purposes. We applaud Mississippi’s effort to update its voter rolls. Because registration is still manual and paper-based, the state lags behind the rest of the country and should adopt reforms like online registration and real-time address updates. This update is a small step toward modernization, but we’ll need to monitor its implementation closely to ensure that consumer data — often inaccurate — is handled with caution and not misused, which could make the rolls even less accurate.
    • Download the Report