The worst-kept secret about Mississippi’s elections is that any voter can vote by absentee each cycle if they are willing to lie.

Prosecutors, election officials and lawmakers know about it, and there’s very little they can do about it.

Exhibit A for this glaring flaw came when Rep. Becky Currie, a Republican from Brookhaven, admitted in a House Elections Committee meeting last week that she previously lied on absentee ballot applications but no longer does because she is over 65 — one of the legal reasons for voting absentee. 

“I finally got old enough that I don’t have to lie,” Currie said, and members of the committee laughed in response. 

To be fair to Currie, she’s by far not the only person in Mississippi who has done this, and her honesty is refreshing. Numerous people each election cycle do the same thing she’s done. 

In fact, Secretary of State Michael Watson, the state’s top elections administrator, acknowledged in a November interview on Mississippi Today’s, “The Other Side” podcast, this practice happens and there’s virtually no way to verify if people are being honest on these forms.

This is why it was surprising that House Elections Committee Chairman Noah Sanford last week successfully pushed to expand this system further by scrapping a Senate bill to establish no-excuse early voting in the state and replace it with a proposal to add a new excuse to the absentee voting system. 

Sanford’s proposal adds an excuse for people who care for children or disabled adults to vote by absentee. His measure also clarifies that people who anticipate having to work on Election Day can vote absentee.

The way a person votes by absentee is they go to their local circuit clerk’s office, request to vote absentee, and the circuit clerk’s employee gives them an absentee ballot application. 

The voter then must check one of around 12 legal excuses for voting absentee. These excuses range from being temporarily disabled, being in college, or being older than 65. A Mississippi voter is not supposed to simply vote absentee out of convenience. 

But what they can do is say on their application that they will be out of the county on Election Day, when, in reality, they’re binge watching the latest season of “Severance,” violating the law. Yet will anyone prosecute them? More than likely not. 

The application clearly states at the end, “I realize that I can be fined up to $5,000 and sentenced up to five years in the penitentiary for making a false statement in this application and for selling my vote and violating the Mississippi Absentee Voter Law.”  

But there’s no realistic way for anyone to police this, and local prosecutors dealing with more serious crimes likely wouldn’t want to prosecute anyone over this anyway. 

To sum it up, nearly everyone who deals with elections knows voters routinely lie on these forms, legislators are laughing about it at the Capitol and are pushing to expand this program. 

Given that the national and state Republican Party claims to care about election integrity and ballot security, why would Sanford and House leaders opt for this absurd system that in its strictest and technical interpretation, is ripe with voter fraud, instead of a much cleaner, more straightforward early voting bill? 

Sanford told reporters this week that he is personally OK with some form of early voting, but he doesn’t have enough support from colleagues to pass the measure. Sanford said he didn’t know why other House members oppose early voting. 

Instead, he’s offering an expanded absentee balloting proposal as an alternative way to keep the conversation alive at the Capitol. Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England told Mississippi Today if the proposal passes the House, he will negotiate with Sanford later in a conference committee.  

Perhaps a reason House leaders are trying to push a convoluted absentee ballot system is because they’re scared of mean tweets from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who has come out in opposition to early voting because he says Democrats want it. 

Reeves previously blasted England for shepherding the early voting bill through the Senate and inaccurately claimed a Democratic senator labeled the measure as one of his priorities. 

Instead, the governor and the House, at least for now, seem content with, again, being an outlier among the vast majority of states, including Republican states, on early voting.  

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

by Jimmie E. Gates, Mississippi Today, Mississippi Today
March 5, 2025

The former head of the office for discipline of attorneys in Wisconsin has filed a complaint with the Mississippi Supreme Court stating retired prosecutor Doug Evans should face suspension from the practice of law for misconduct in the prosecution of Curtis Giovanni Flowers.

Flowers spent 23 in prison, most of it on death row. Flowers was tried six times for the 1996 murders of four people in a furniture store in Winona. After the sixth reversal, the state dropped its case against him.

Evans prosecuted all six trials against Flowers. None of the trials resulted in a legally valid conviction. Four of them resulted in capital murder convictions and death sentences, all of which were overturned because of Evans’ misconduct, including what the United States Supreme Court described as a “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals” throughout the course of the trials, according to a settled federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Flowers.

Gerald ”Jerry” Sternberg of Madison, Wisconsin, first filed a complaint with the Mississippi State Bar in 2021 against Evans but said in a complaint with the Mississippi Supreme Court last year the Bar never acted on his complaint.

Sternberg served almost 16 years as administrator of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Board of Attorneys Professional Responsibility. In that role, he said he prosecuted attorneys, including some prosecutors, for actions deemed less severe than Evans’ actions in the Flowers’ case.

Sternberg said in his complaint that Mississippi Bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility has been utterly feckless in addressing serious misconduct by a prosecutor, citing unexcused delays and not being transparent. He said the only thing he heard from the Bar was when the case was on the agenda.

However, he said Bar officials indicated action would be deferred as long as a federal lawsuit filed by Flowers against Evans and others was pending. The federal lawsuit was settled in 2023. Also, Evans retired in 2023 after the settlement. He is retired but has been performing some private law practice in Grenada.

Despite retiring as district attorney, Evans should still face disciplinary action, according to Sternberg.

Evans, reached by phone March 3, said Sternberg doesn’t know him or anything about the case. He said Sternberg is only seeking publicity. Evans has repeatedly said he believed Flowers was guilty and he was doing his job as a prosecutor.

Sternberg said he became interested in the case after watching a broadcast by CBS “60 Minutes” news magazine about the Flowers’ case.

Sternberg said he was assured by the then-Bar’s general counsel, Adam Kilgore, that Evans’ retirement wouldn’t affect his ethics complaint. Kilgore retired from the Bar at the end of last year. Mississippi Today contacted Kilgore about Evans’ complaint. He referred our inquiry to current Bar General Counsel Melissa Scott.

Scott said Bar rules prohibit disciplinary agents and their staff from disclosing information relating to informal Bar complaints unless an accused attorney makes a public statement, or a formal complaint is filed with the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Sternberg said in Flowers’ first trial, on appeal, the court found Evans committed prosecutorial misconduct. In the second trial, the court found Evans committed prosecutorial misconduct by discriminating on the basis of race in striking a Black potential juror from consideration.

In Flowers’ third trial, his conviction was also overturned on appeal, citing Evans’ challenges in jury selection were racially motivated and thus unconstitutional. His four and fifth trials ended in hung juries.

In his sixth and final trial, on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Evans violated the Batson decision, which prohibits discriminatory reasons in excluding potential jurors in a case.

When asked if she believes Evans should face disciplinary action, Cornell University Law Professor Sheri Lynn Johnson, who successfully argued Flowers’ appeal to the high court, said she would repeat what she told Supreme Court justices:

“The only plausible interpretation of all of the evidence viewed cumulatively is that Doug Evans began jury selection in Flowers VI with an unconstitutional end in mind, to seat as few African American jurors as he could.” Seven justices agreed. I am not a Mississippi lawyer, but I would hope that in every state deliberate violation of the Constitution would incur some professional cost,” Johnson said.

Sternberg said he believes the suspension of Evans’ license to practice law is appropriate to deter other prosecutors from engaging in similar misconduct and to send a clear message that his conduct in the past as district attorney is unacceptable.

District attorneys have tremendous power over people’s lives given their power to charge people with criminal activity, according to Sternberg. He said prosecutors have to exercise their power wisely. They are also supposed to fulfill the role of a minister of justice, not simply tallying up wins and losses, but rather, striking fair blows, he said.

“With these multiple acts of prosecutorial misconduct across at least four Curtis Flowers trials and Curtis Flowers serving more than 20 years in prison and death row, an analysis would be essential as to whether these acts of prosecutorial misconduct also were violations of the Mississippi Rules of Professional Conduct,” Sternberg wrote to state Supreme Court.

Hubbard T. Saunders, court administrator and counsel for the Mississippi Supreme Court, has acknowledged the court received Sternberg’s letters of complaint. Court officials, however, said there was no formal action before the court on Evans.

After the case was returned to the trial court for a potential seventh trial, Flowers was released on bail on Dec. 16, 2019. Evans then withdrew from the case in the face of a motion to recuse him. The Mississippi attorney general was appointed in his place.

Attorney General Lynn Fitch moved to dismiss the charges with prejudice – meaning they can’t be brought back up – after an independent review of the evidence. Flowers’ trial court judge granted that motion to dismiss the charges against Flowers in September 2020.

After the charges were dropped against Flowers, a court cleared him of any involvement in the crime and the state awarded him a total of $500,000, spread over 10 years, from the wrongly convicted fund.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The House on Tuesday night killed Senate legislation that aimed to shore up the state’s underfunded public employee retirement system by offering less benefits to future hires.

The measures died after the House Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency Committee failed to take them up by a Tuesday night deadline. Earlier in the day, it appeared the measures would survive, after the House State Affairs Committee passed them after some debate, and on voice votes that sounded clearly like a majority of the committee voted no despite the chairman’s ruling they passed.

It’s unclear whether the retirement system overhaul, one of Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann’s top priorities, can be revived this late in the legislative session. Last year, a bill to alter the PERS board and limit its authority died with a similar deadline, but was revived late in the legislative session and a compromise version passed.

Proponents of this years proposed overhaul, authored by Sen. Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont, say PERS, with an unfunded liability of $26 billion, could potentially founder from recession or natural disaster. They say increased contributions from state and local government “employers” — hence taxpayers — are unsustainable. They say failing to make major changes now endangers current employee and retiree benefits and taxpayers down the road.

“For me, my commitment from the day I was elected is to honor the obligation we have to current employees, retirees and beneficiaries,” Sparks said. “… For me, this is two-fold, honoring the commitment we have made, and two, coming up with a plan that provides flexibility for the future. Keeping doing what we’re doing, is so out of whack from what the system should look like. It’s a fact that no one has taken a real look at it and had real solutions.”

Opponents, including public education and teachers’ advocates, say drastically reducing benefits for future state employees will make it impossible to recruit, and especially retain, teachers, police and others in relatively low-paying government jobs. They say the system, which has assets of about $35 billion, can be shored up for the long term with less drastic cuts for future retirees.

“I’ve been looking at this through specifically the lens of the educator pipeline …” said Toren Ballard, a public education advocate and independent researcher who has been critical of the proposed PERS overhaul. “If you look at the general career of a teacher, you lose a ton of people in the first few years … but generally, after a decade or so, they usually stay around at that point … (PERS) is a great deal if you stay in, and by taking away that incentive — I think we’re taking that level of retention we get from (PERS) for granted.

“People keep talking about we are going to treat government employees more like the private sector, and we don’t have pensions in the private sector anymore,” Ballard said. “But the problem is, if you don’t then make the salary like the private sector, you’re giving teachers and other public employees the worst of both worlds.”

PERS currently covers about 350,000 current public employees or retirees — about 10% of the state’s population. Changes to the system can have substantial economic impact on the state in the future.

While Mississippi’s pay for government jobs typically falls short of others in the Southeast, the Magnolia State’s defined benefit pension plan is relatively generous. It includes an annual 3% cost of living adjustment, compounding. This is typically referred to as the “13th check,” because employees can opt to take the COLA in a lump sum annually.

Some lawmakers in recent years have lamented that the Legislature in the late 1990s was too generous when it added the guaranteed COLA and increased other benefits. Others defend it, saying PERS is the only way Mississippi can compete for and retain employees, especially in teaching.

Sparks’ main PERS overhaul bill, SB 2439, would change benefits for employees hired after March 2026 to a “hybrid” retirement, part defined benefit and part defined contribution. Employees would still have 9% withheld from their checks, with 4% going into a defined benefit plan, and 5% going into a defined contribution plan, such as a 401(a) account, similar to the 401(k) plans popular in the private sector. There would be no guaranteed COLA, or 13th check, as current state employees would receive, although Sparks said state agencies or local governments could in the future offer increases or one-time adjustments as incentives, if budgets allow.

But Ballard said: “So, there’s two parts of the hybrid plan. You have the much-reduced, guaranteed pension aspect of it. If you make it eight years, you qualify for at least some of that. But the other half is more a 401(k)-styled plan that’s kind of standard in the private sector, but in the private sector, you generally get an employer match … I’m not against a defined contribution plan, in theory. But if you’re not offering an employer match, why not just let the employee keep that 5% of their salary and do it on their own at that point.”

Ballard and others — including some lawmakers and at least one PERS board member — have proposed the Legislature consider less drastic changes for future employees, including having a 1% COLA instead of 3% and-or tie such increases to the consumer price index.

But Sparks notes the PERS board endorsed the plan he’s now pushing, and said a proposal for such a lesser change and continued defined benefit plan failed to garner a second when proposed to the system’s board.

“To go in and have a defined benefit with fewer benefits — there’s still a risk factor,” Sparks said. “… Along with the board, I believe a pure defined benefit system is not what we see in the private sector and a hybrid is more in line with that corporate America is doing and could provide us some flexibility.”

Any proposed changes to PERS would not immediately true the system, but would take decades to balance the systems books. Ballard said actuaries have shown that within 30 years or so, there’s not a huge difference in the proposed new plan and “doing nothing” on balancing the books. He said projections on reducing the COLA from 3% to 1% have shown similar results long-term for the funded ratio of PERS.

And in the meantime, PERS will likely seek more money from taxpayers on the state and local levels.

The state House did not float a PERS overhaul plan of its own this session, but instead proposes in its major tax restructuring plan to divert state lottery money — roughly $100 million a year — to the PERS plan.

Last year, lawmakers stripped a key power from the PERS board, its authority to set the percentage governmental entities contribute on behalf of employees.

To deal with long-term financial issues, the PERS board last year had planned a 5% increase over three years to 22.4% that the employers or governmental entities contributed to each paycheck. Governmental entities, particularly local governments and school districts, said to pay for the increase they would be forced to reduce services and lay off employees.

While stripping the power from the PERS Board to set the employer contribution rate, the Legislature also enacted a 2.5% increase over five years instead of the 5% increase over three years planned by the PERS Board.

In addition, the Legislature last year provided a one-time infusion of $110 million into the system.

Ballard said reducing PERS retirement benefits might eventually mean the state cannot afford to recruit and retain employees, particularly those with experience.

But Sparks said savings gained from overhauling the system would eventually free up dollars where agencies or local governments could afford raises and other benefits to help with recruiting.

The House on Tuesday also kept alive a bill authored by Sparks to reduce benefits for institutions of higher learning employees in the Optional Retirement Plan, and eliminate the plan for new hires. ORP is a defined compensation plan where university employees can opt out of PERS and still receive a relatively large contribution from their employer for their plan. Sparks said the plan is not sustainable, and contributes billions to PERS underfunding.

“They’re getting a 15.5% (government) match on a 9% employee contribution,” Sparks said. “That’s unconscionable … My bill would cap it at 9%.”

House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III, D-Natchez, a State Affairs Committee member, questioned the proposed ORP changes.

“Has there been any consideration that this is a major recruiting tool for our universities?” Johnson said. “I don’t usually get calls from Ole Miss, Mississippi State … but I have been getting calls about this. If they call me, it means they really, really, really have a problem.”

State Affairs and the House Accountability, Efficiency and Transparency committees passed the two PERS Senate bills before Tuesday night’s deadline, but only after “reverse repealers” were added to the bill to prevent them becoming law without more debate and sending the measures back to the Senate. But the bills were “double referred” to the AET Committee, which did not take them up before the deadline.

House State Affairs Chairman Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs, ruled the bills passed his committee by a voice vote despite the “Nos” being magnitudes louder, and he ignored calls from committee members asking for a counted vote.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.