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Welfare head pleaded guilty to federal charges one year ago. What’s happened since?

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Welfare head pleaded guilty to federal charges one year ago. What’s happened since?

One year ago today, a former Mississippi state agency director stood before a state and federal judge and admitted to steering federal welfare funds to enrich the sons of a wealthy retired WWE wrestler.

The crimes represent just a sliver of a larger scandal inside a welfare agency that, under the direction of former Gov. Phil Bryant, systematically prioritized federal grant spending on pet projects over people.

“This is often what happens when you have a political party, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, so dominating a state that they think they’re invincible, that they can do anything,” said Doug Jones, a former U.S. senator and U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

Auditors accused John Davis, the now 55-year-old disgraced career government bureaucrat, of creating a culture of fear and secrecy at his agency between 2016 and 2019, frittering away at least $77 million in funds that were supposed to assist the state’s poorest residents.

But zooming out, records and text messages obtained by Mississippi Today show that Davis took his direction from the governor who appointed him. While the scandal took place, Bryant often met with Davis about the administration of the federally funded welfare grant and liked what the director was doing. Having agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, Davis is now a key witness in the case.

When the State Auditor’s Office and the Hinds County District Attorney first announced the arrests of Davis and five others in early 2020, they promised to work with their federal partners to fully investigate and pursue every person responsible for what they called the largest public embezzlement case in state history.

Since then, Mississippi Today has surfaced text messages showing that Bryant planned on entering into business with the Florida-based pharmaceutical company at the center of the initial indictments. The texts show that former NFL quarterback Brett Favre briefed Bryant about the funds that welfare officials channeled into the drug startup, Prevacus, and sought the then-governor’s help securing more grants for a new volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi.

Six people ensnared in the case, including Favre, have alleged Bryant approved or even directed some of the spending decisions in question — allegations Bryant has denied.

“We’re still looking through records and text messages as we continue to move up,” Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens told reporters after Davis’ plea hearing on Sept. 22, 2022, months after Mississippi Today exposed texts between Bryant and the welfare director. “We also continue to work with the federal authorities in Washington and in Mississippi. John Davis is critical because the ladder continues to move up.”

No one in any position above Davis has been charged. Since the 2020 state arrests, federal authorities have charged just two additional people, bringing the total number of state or federal criminal defendants to eight. Bryant and Favre are not facing criminal charges.

Bryant’s attorney Billy Quin said in a statement to Mississippi Today on Thursday that Bryant has not been interviewed by investigators on the case.

READ MORE: Allegations against former Gov. Phil Bryant from Brett Favre, Nancy New, Paul Lacoste, Austin Smith, Teddy DiBiase and Christi Webb

The seven who have pleaded guilty to crimes within the welfare scandal remain free under cooperation agreements with prosecutors. The government has suspended sentencing until it decides it no longer needs the defendants’ cooperation for potential cases against others. Federal authorities have been silent about the progress of their investigation or who else they may be looking at charging. 

“It’s not unusual for their sentencing to be postponed until the full extent of their cooperation is known, and that could be trial testimony,” said Jones, who has followed developments in the welfare case from his neighboring state. “So this could be a ways to go before we see anybody being sentenced.”

The September 2022 federal bill of information against Davis — a charging document to which he pleaded guilty after waiving a formal indictment — represented the first criminal charges the federal government filed within the welfare case, more than two years after the state arrests. Charges against Davis mostly deal with welfare money he pushed to professional wrestling brothers Brett and Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr.

Federal prosecutors struck plea deals with nonprofit founder Nancy New and her son Zach New months earlier in April of 2022, but those charges related to public education funds that the News fraudulently obtained for their private schools.

In March of this year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office secured guilty pleas from Brett DiBiase, who went to a luxury rehab facility on the welfare program’s dime, and Christi Webb, director of another nonprofit that contracted with the state. It also indicted Teddy DiBiase, who pleaded not guilty, in April. It has not publicly filed new charges since then.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Mississippi, which has been handling the case, has not had a permanent U.S. Attorney at its helm since early 2021 and has been waiting more than a year for the U.S. Senate to confirm President Joe Biden’s nomination Todd Gee. On Wednesday, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio again single-handedly blocked the Senate’s confirmations of all U.S. Department of Justice appointments, including Gee, because of the current criminal cases they are bringing against former President Donald Trump.

Separate from the criminal cases, 20 people, including Favre, are facing state civil charges. That lawsuit attempts to recoup $77 million from people or entities it says are liable for the misspending, which mostly occurred through two nonprofits running a program called Families First for Mississippi. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency that administers the welfare grant, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, has said that it will require the state to return any misspent funds out of its own budget, but it has been waiting to see what happens with ongoing criminal and civil proceedings before taking action.

U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said he has asked the federal agency for its assessment of the state of Mississippi’s fitness to manage these funds in the future, but he has not received a response.

“The fact that public funds were directed (away) from the original intent … is egregious, especially when the money is intended for vulnerable families to try to prepare them for a better life, and that money just does not get to them,” Thompson said.

Several people or entities named in the civil suit have pushed back on the prevailing public narrative that they callously looted money from the poor.

The DiBiase family, for example, says they were carrying out the mission of the agency when Davis hired them to conduct multi-million-dollar motivational courses or preach the gospel to low-income teens. Paul Lacoste, a fitness trainer whose company received a $1.3 million contract through Families First, says he met about his program with Davis, Bryant, and officials from the federal office, who all supported the concept of offering exercise classes as part of the welfare agency’s approach to strengthening Mississippi families. Lobaki, a software company that received $795,000 through Families First to conduct a virtual reality academy, says the vocational training it was contracted to perform fits the welfare program’s purpose of “ending the dependence of needy parents on government benefits.”

“It was the government that chose to run this program this way. And it was not a secret,” Teddy DiBiase Jr.’s criminal defense attorney, Scott Gilbert, told Mississippi Today earlier this year. “… So what this boils down to is do people feel like this was an appropriate use of TANF money or other money to carry out the function of government? That’s a fair question, and that’s a question that reasonable people absolutely can disagree about. But it’s not a crime.”

Ultimately, the federal government has given state politicians broad leeway to spend federal TANF dollars based on their philosophy about poverty and what constitutes helping people, including the boot-straps approach of intentionally withholding government assistance. Gov. Bryant, who oversaw the welfare department and set its agenda during the time the scandal occurred, preferred the “Families First” programming of parenting and fatherhood classes, bullying prevention, abstinence education and anti-obesity initiatives. But Bryant never asked the agency for outcomes to show what those programs accomplished or how they prevented or moved families out of poverty.

“You would think the state is the safeguard for handling funds like this, but when you have people who are the custodian of these funds at the state level who have unclean missions in life, then you have what you have,” Thompson said.

Over time, the purchases attached to those nebulous services morphed into things like a 15-acre horse ranch for former USM running back Marcus Dupree, the construction of a volleyball stadium, lobbying expenses, sports camps for young athletes and star-studded high school rallies. At the same time, from 2016 to 2020, the state cut the number of families receiving monthly assistance in half, from nearly 6,000 to 2,600, with virtually no concern from state leadership.

“There is a culture. Whether or not legally it rises to federal cases, and goes that high up, from a criminal standpoint, it may or may not. But it certainly is morally corrupt what they did and people ought to pay a political price for it,” Jones said.

From 2020 to 2022, under Gov. Tate Reeves, the caseload of families dropped another 1,000 while the state has left over $100 million in welfare funds unspent. Current agency director Bob Anderson told lawmakers last year that the state was still not tracking the outcomes for families receiving services through TANF subgrantees.

The criminal investigation may have halted the actual fraud, but so far it has made little difference to the very poor families seeking help through the program, or to Mississippians looking for answers about how things went so wrong.

When Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Adrienne Wooten asked Davis at his plea hearing last year why he would break the law to enrich Brett DiBiase, all he could muster was, “Very, very bad judgment,” followed by a long pause and then, “I shouldn’t have done it.”

Davis’ state guilty plea to 18 counts of fraud or conspiracy came with a prison sentence of 32 years — a fact featured prominently in news headlines — but that’s nowhere near the time he’ll actually serve. In the generous joint plea agreement between federal and state prosecutors and Davis, the looming federal sentence of no more than 15 years in federal prison on two counts supersedes the state sentence.

The deal all but ensures he’ll never face a criminal trial or see the inside of one Mississippi’s notoriously harsh state prisons. The other defendants received similar deals. Wooten seemed to leave the courtroom unsatisfied.

“Even with the questions that have been asked,” she said by the end of the hearing, “this court is still not understanding what actually took place and more importantly, what would’ve caused you to perform these particular acts.”

As the historic case enters its fourth year, the same could be said for the public.

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June 21, 2019

Investigation begins

Mississippi State Auditor’s Office begins investigation into fraud at the Mississippi Department of Human Services

February 4, 2020

Grand jury indicts six people

Hinds County grand jury indicts six people — former MDHS Director John Davis, nonprofit founder Nancy New and her son Zach New, former professional wrestler Brett DiBiase, nonprofit accountant Anne McGrew and former MDHS procurement officer Gregory “Latimer” Smith.

February 5, 2020

The case goes public

Agents from the auditor’s office arrest six people, making the case public. The charges alleges they stole a total of $4 million from the welfare department, $2 million of which went to a pharmaceutical company called Prevacus. The venture involved both former Gov. Phil Bryant and former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, Mississippi Today uncovered shortly after the arrests

February 6, 2020

State Auditor and the FBI

State Auditor Shad White says he turned over all investigative materials to the FBI, but then-U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst says state authorities did not reach out to his office about the investigation and that he learned about the indictment from media reports

May 4, 2020

Annual audit released

The auditor releases an annual audit questioning $94 million in federal grant fund purchases, including $1.1 million New’s nonprofit paid directly to Favre

June 22, 2020

First known court action

Agents from the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington filed a complaint for civil forfeiture to seize the Madison home of former professional wrestler Ted “Teddy” DiBiase. This is the DOJ’s first known court action in the welfare case

December 17, 2020

Brett DiBiase faces state charges

Brett DiBiase pleads guilty to state charges

March 16, 2021

Nancy and Zach New indicted

A federal grand jury indicts Nancy and Zach New on separate charges that their private schools, called New Summit, defrauded the Mississippi Department of Education out of $2 million, later increased to $4 million

October 1, 2021

Forensic audit released

MDHS releases its forensic audit confirming much of the suspected welfare misspending

October 11, 2021

McGrew pleads guilty

Anne McGrew pleads guilty to state charges

April 4, 2022

“The Backchannel” is published

Mississippi Today begins publishing its investigative series, “The Backchannel,” which, for the first time, reveals text messages between Bryant and Favre showing that the athlete offered stock in Prevacus to the governor in exchange for his help growing the company; that Favre told Bryant when Prevacus started receiving funds from the welfare operators; and that Bryant agreed to accept a company package after leaving office, right before the initial arrests in early 2020

April 20, 2022

The News face federal charges

Nancy and Zach New plead guilty to federal charges related to their private school funding scheme

April 22, 2022

The News face state charges

Nancy and Zach New plead guilty to state charges related to the welfare scandal. Zach New’s charges include funneling welfare money to the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation to build a volleyball stadium

May 9, 2022

MDHS files civil lawsuit

MDHS files a civil lawsuit against 35 people or companies, including Favre, to recoup $24 million in misspent welfare funds. On the direction of Gov. Tate Reeves’ office, the suit does not target the volleyball stadium or University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation

July 22, 2022

Brad Pigott fired

Reeves’s office and MDHS fire Brad Pigott, the lawyer it hired to craft the civil suit, about a week after Pigott subpoenaed University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation for its communication with former Gov. Bryant, among others

September 22, 2022

John Davis pleads guilty

John Davis pleads guilty to state and federal charges

October 3, 2022

Latimer Smith avoids prosecution

Latimer Smith receives pre-trial diversion, allowing him to avoid prosecution

December 5, 2022

MDHS amends charges

MDHS amends charges in the civil lawsuit, adding the USM volleyball stadium scheme and nine new people or companies, bringing the total attempted recovery to $77 million and number of defendants to 44

March 2, 2023

Brett DiBiase faces federal charges

Brett DiBiase pleads guilty to federal charges

March 16, 2023

Christi Webb faces federal charges

Christi Webb pleads guilty to federal charges, the first criminal charges she’s faced

April 20, 2023

Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. pleads not guilty

Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. pleads not guilty to federal charges, the first criminal charges he’s faced

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

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Mississippi Today

Pharmacy benefit manager reform likely dead

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mississippitoday.org – Gwen Dilworth – 2025-04-01 17:26:00

Hotly contested legislation that aimed to increase the transparency and regulation of pharmacy benefit managers appeared dead in the water Tuesday after a lawmaker challenged the bill for a rule violation.

The bill was sent back to conference after Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, raised a point of order challenging the addition of code sections to the bill, which will likely kill it. 

House members in the past have chosen to turn a blind eye to the rule, which would require the added code sections to be removed when the bill is returned to conference. This fatal flaw will make it difficult to revive the legislation. 

“It will almost certainly die,” said House Speaker Jason White, who authored the legislation. “And you can celebrate that with your pharmacist when you see them.”

“…This wasn’t ‘gotcha.’ Everybody in this chamber knew that code sections were added, because the attempt was to make 1123 more suitable to all the parties.”

The bill sought to protect patients and independent pharmacists, who have warned that if legislators do not pass a law this year to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, which serve as middlemen in the pharmaceutical industry, some pharmacies may be forced to close. They say that the companies’ low payments and unfair business practices have left them struggling to break even.

The bill underwent several revisions in the House and Senate before reaching its most recent form, which independent pharmacists say has watered the bill down and will not offer them adequate protection. 

House Bill 1123, authored by White, originally focused on the transparency of pharmacy benefit managers. The Senate then beefed up the bill by adding provisions barring the companies from steering patients to affiliate pharmacies and prohibiting spread pricing – the practice of paying insurers more for drugs than pharmacists in order to inflate pharmacy benefit managers’ profits. 

House Speaker Jason White brings the House of Representatives to order at the beginning of the new legislative session at the State Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025 in Jackson.

Independent pharmacists, who have flocked to the Capitol to advocate for reform this session, widely supported the Senate’s version of the bill. 

The Senate incorporated several recommendations from the House into its bill, saying that they believed that the legislation would have the House’s support. 

Instead, the House sent the bill to conference and requested additional changes, including new language that would eliminate self-funded insurance plans, or health plans in which employers assume the financial risk of covering employees’ health care costs themselves, from a section of the bill that prohibits pharmacy benefit managers from steering patients to specific pharmacies.

This language seeks to satisfy employers, who argue that regulating pharmacy benefit managers’ business practices will lead to higher health insurance costs. 

Sen. Rita Parks, R-Corinth, who has spearheaded pharmacy benefit manager reform efforts in the Senate, previously said that adding the language to the bill would “remove any protection out of the law.” But she signed the conference report that included the language Monday after a heated conference meeting between lawmakers. 

Rep. Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs and co-author of the bill, said the bill has something for everybody, gesturing to its concessions for employers and independent pharmacists. He said the bill gives independent pharmacists 85% of what they wanted. 

Mississippi Independent Pharmacies Association director Robert Dozier was not available for comment by the time the story published. 

Zuber told House members Tuesday to “blame the Senate” for the slow progress of pharmacy benefit manager reform in Mississippi, citing the body’s failure to take up a drug pricing transparency bill half a decade ago, for three years in a row.

“If the Senate had followed the leadership and the legislation that we drafted those many years ago, we would not be here,” Zuber said. “We would have the information on drug pricing, we would have the information and transparency on (pharmacy benefit managers) and we would have the ultimate reason as to why drug costs continue to rise.”

Members of the House expressed dissatisfaction with the legislation Tuesday, arguing it did not do enough to ensure lower prescription drug costs for consumers. 

“I’m going to try to do something next year that goes even further,” Zuber responded.

For the past several years, lawmakers have proposed bills to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, but none have made it as far as this session. 

“We’ll go another year,” said White. 

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

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Mississippi Today

Feuding GOP lawmakers prepare to leave Jackson without a budget, let governor force them back

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-01 19:23:00

After months of bitter Republican political infighting, the Legislature appears likely to end its session Wednesday without passing a $7 billion budget to fund state agencies, potentially threatening a government shutdown if they don’t come back and adopt one by June 30. 

After the House adjourned Tuesday night, Speaker Jason White said he had presented the Senate with a final offer to extend the session, which would give the two chambers more time to negotiate a budget. As for now, the 100 or so bills that make up the state budget are dead.

The Senate leadership was expected to meet and consider the offer Tuesday evening, White said. But numerous senators both Republican and Democrat said they would oppose such a parliamentary resolution, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has also said it’s unlikely and that the governor will have to force lawmakers back into special session.

White said he believes, if the Senate would agree to extend the session and restart negotiations, lawmakers could pass a budget and end the 2025 session by Sunday, only a few days later than planned.

But if the Senate chooses not to pass a resolution extending the session, White said the House would end the session on Wednesday.

It would take a two-thirds vote of support in both chambers to suspend the rules and extend the session. The Senate opposition appears to be enough to prevent that. 

Still, the speaker said he believes Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Senate leaders are considering the proposal. But he said if he doesn’t hear a positive response by Wednesday, the House will adjourn and wait for Gov. Tate Reeves to call a special session at a later date. 

“We are open to (extending the session), but we will not stay here until Sunday waiting around to see if they might do it,” White said.  

White said leaving the Capitol without a budget and punting the issue to a special session might not cool tensions between the chambers, as some lawmakers hope. 

“I think when you leave here and you end up in a special session, some folks say, ‘Well everybody that’s upset will cool down by then.’ They may, or it may get worse. It may shine a different and specific light on some of the things in this budget and the differences in the House and Senate,” White said. “Whereas, I think everybody now is in the legislative mode, and we might get there.”

The Mississippi Constitution does not grant the governor much power, but if Gov. Tate Reeves calls lawmakers into a special session, he gets to set the specific legislative agenda — not lawmakers. 

White said the governor could potentially use his executive authority to direct lawmakers to take up other bills, such as those related to education, before getting to the budget. 

“When we leave here without a budget, it is entirely the governor’s prerogative to when he (sets a special session) and how he does that.”

While the future of the state’s budget hangs in the balance, lawmakers have spent the remaining days of their regular session trying to pass the few remaining bills that remained alive on their calendars. 

House approves DEI ban, Senate could follow suit on Wednesday 

The House on Tuesday passed a proposal to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs from public schools, and both chambers approved a measure to establish a form of early voting. 

The House approved a conference report compromise to ban DEI programs and a list of “divisive concepts” from K-12 schools, community colleges and universities. If the Senate follows suit, Mississippi would join a number of other Republican-controlled states and President Donald Trump, who has made rooting DEI out of the federal government one of his top priorities. 

The agreement between the Republican-dominated chambers follows hours of heated debate in which Democrats, all almost of whom are Black, excoriated the legislation as a setback in the long struggle to make Mississippi a fairer place for minorities. Legislative Republicans argued the legislation will elevate merit in education and remove from school settings “divisive concepts” that exacerbate divisions among different identity groups. 

The concepts that will be rooted out from curricula include the idea that gender identity can be a “subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality.” The move reflects another effort to align with the Trump administration, which has declared via executive order that there are only two sexes.

The House and Senate disagreed on how to enforce the act, but ultimately settled on an agreement that would empower students, faculty members and contractors to sue schools for violating the law, but only after they go through an internal campus review process that would give schools time to make changes. The legislation could also withhold state funds from schools that don’t comply. 

Legislature sends ‘early voting lite’ bill to governor 

The Legislature also overwhelmingly passed a proposal to establish a watered down version of early voting, though the legislation is titled “in-person excused voting,” and not early voting.

The proposal establishes 22 days of in-person voting before Election Day that requires voters to go to the circuit clerk’s office or another location county officials have designated as a secure early voting facility, such as a courtroom or a board of supervisors meeting room. 

To cast an early vote, someone must present a valid form of photo ID and list one of about 15 legal excuses to vote before Election Day. The excuses, however, are broad and would, in theory, allow many people to cast early ballots. 

Examples of valid excuses are voters expecting to work on Election Day, being at least 65 years old, being currently enrolled in college or potentially travelling outside of their county on Election Day. 

Since most eligible voters either work, go to college or are older than 65 years of age, these excuses would apply to almost everyone. 

“Even though this isn’t early voting as we saw originally, it makes this more convenient for hard working Mississippians to go by their clerks’ office and vote in person after showing an ID 22 days prior to an election,” Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England said. 

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves opposes early voting, so it’s unclear if he would sign the measure into law or veto it. 

Both chambers are expected to gavel at 10 a.m. on Wednesday to debate the final items on their agenda. 

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

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Mississippi Today

‘A lot of us are confused’: Lacking info, some Jacksonians go to wrong polling place

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mississippitoday.org – @mintamolly – 2025-04-01 18:43:00

Johnny Byrd knew that when his south Jackson neighborhood Carriage Hills changed wards during redistricting last year, his neighbors would have trouble finding their correct polling place on Election Day.

So he bought a poster board and inscribed it with their new voting location – Christ Tabernacle Church.

“I made a sign and placed it in front of the entrance to our neighborhood that told them exactly where to go so there would be no confusion,” said Byrd, vice president of the Association of South Jackson Neighborhoods.

Still, on April 1, a car full of voters from a senior living facility who should have gone to Christ Tabernacle were driven to their old polling place. 

“I thought it was unfortunate they had to get there and find out rather than knowing in advance that their polling location was different,” said Sen. Sollie Norwood, a Democrat from Jackson who was on the ground Tuesday helping constituents with voting.

One of those elderly women became frustrated and said she no longer wanted to vote, Norwood said, though her companions tried to convince her otherwise. By midday Tuesday, 300 people had voted at Christ Tabernacle, one of the city’s largest precincts currently in terms of registered voters, but among the lowest in turnout historically.

Voting rights advocates and candidates vying for municipal office in Jackson are keeping an eye on issues facing voters at the polls, though without official results, it remains to be seen if that will dampen turnout this election with the hotly contested Democratic primary.

“I still believed it was gonna be low,” Monica McInnis, a program manager for the nonprofit OneVoice, said of turnout. “I was expecting it would be a little higher because of what is on the ballot and how many people are running in all of the wards as well as the mayor’s race.”

A daughter helps her mother casts her votes as mayoral candidate John Horhn chats with voter at Christ Tabernacle Church in south Jackson, Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

The situation is evolving as the day goes on, but the main issues are twofold. One, thousands of Jackson voters have new precinct locations after redistricting last year put them into a new city council ward. 

Two, some voters didn’t realize their polling place for the municipal elections may differ from where they voted in last year’s national elections, which are run by the counties. 

In Mississippi, voters are assigned two precincts that are often but not always the same: A municipal location for city elections and a county location for senate, gubernatorial and presidential elections 

“People in Mississippi, we go to the same polling location for three years, and that fourth year, it changes,” said Jada Barnes, an organizer with the Jackson-based nonprofit MS Votes. “A lot of us are confused. When people are going to the polling place today, they’re seeing it is closed, so they’re just going back home which is making turnout go even lower.” 

Barnes said she’s hearing this primarily from a few Jackson voters who called a hotline that MS Votes is manning. Lack of awareness around polling locations is a big deterrent, she said, because most people are trying to squeeze their vote in between work, school or family responsibilities. 

“Maybe you’re on your lunch break, you only got 30 minutes to go vote, you learn that your polling location has changed and now you have to go back to work,” she said. 

Norwood said he heard from a group of students assigned to vote at Christ Tabernacle who had attempted to vote at the wrong precinct and were told their names weren’t on the rolls. They didn’t know they had been moved from Ward 4 to Ward 6, Norwood said, meaning they expected to vote in a different council race until reaching the polls Tuesday.

Though voters have a duty to be informed of their polling location, Barnes said city and circuit clerks and local election commissioners are ultimately responsible for making sure voters know where to go on Election Day. 

Angela Harris, the Jackson municipal clerk, said her office worked to inform voters by mailing out thousands of letters to Jacksonians whose precincts changed, including the roughly 6,000 whose wards changed during the 2024 redistricting. 

“I am over-swamped,” she said yesterday. 

Despite her efforts, at least one voter said he never got a letter. Stephen Brown learned through Facebook, not an official notice, that he was moved from Ward 1 to Ward 2. 

Stephen Brown, a resident of Briarwood Heights in northeast Jackson, ran into difficulty voting April 1.

A resident of the Briarwood Heights neighborhood in northeast Jackson, Brown’s efforts to vote Tuesday have been complicated by mixed messages and a lack of communication. He has yet to vote, even though he showed up at the polls at 7:10 this morning. 

His odyssey took him to two wrong locations, where the poll managers instructed Brown to call his ward’s election commissioner, who did not answer multiple calls, Brown said. Brown finally learned through a Facebook comment that he could look up his new precinct on the Mississippi Secretary of State’s website — if he scrolled down the page past his county precinct information.

This afternoon, Brown has a series of meetings planned, so now he’s hoping for a 30-minute window to try voting one more time, even though he’s skeptical it will make a difference. 

“I’m a very disenchanted voter, because I’ve been let down so much,” he said. “I vote because it’s the thing that I’m supposed to do and because of the sacrifices of my ancestors, but not because I truly believe in it, you know?” 

Brown’s not alone in facing turbulence. Back at Christ Tabernacle, one Jackson voter, who declined to give her name, said she’s frustrated from having to drive to three polling locations in one day.

“I’m dissatisfied with the fact that I had to drive from one end of this street and all of the back to come over here when I usually vote over here on Highway 18,” she said. “This was a great inconvenience, gas wise and time wise.”

The same thing happened to Rodney Miller. He called the confusion some voters are facing in this election “unnecessary.” 

“That ain’t the way we should be handling business,” he said. “We should be looking out for one another better than that, you know? It’s already enough getting people out to vote, and when you confuse them when they try? Come on now. That’s discouraging.”

Christ Tabernacle is the second largest precinct in the city in terms of registered voters, with 3,330 assigned to vote there as of 2024, according to documents retrieved from the municipal election committee. But it had one of the lowest voter turnout rates – 10% in the 2021 primary election before redistricting and before it became so large.

Byrd mentioned the much higher turnout in places like Ward 1 in northeast Jackson, compared to where he lives in south Jackson. Why does Byrd think this is?

“Civics,” Byrd said. “They took civics out of school. If you ask the average person what is the role and responsibility of any elected official, they can’t tell you.”

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

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