From the sub-summary ...
... Political alignment
Mississippi led the South in developing a disenfranchising constitution, passing it in 1890. By raising barriers to voter registration, the state legislature disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites, excluding them from politics until the late 1960s.
It established a one-party state dominated by white Democrats, particularly those politicians who supported poor whites and farmers. Although the state was dominated by one party, there were a small number of Democrats who fought against most legislative measures that disenfranchised most blacks.[192]
They also sided with the small group of Mississippi Republicans that still existed in the state and Republicans at the federal level on legislative measures that benefited them.
Most blacks were still disenfranchised under the state's 1890 constitution and discriminatory practices, until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and concerted grassroots efforts to achieve registration and encourage voting.[193] In the 1980s, whites divided evenly between the parties.
In the 1990s, those voters largely shifted their allegiance to the Republican Party, first for national and then for state offices.[194]
Gubernatorial elections
In 2019, a federal lawsuit claiming the provisions to be elected Governor were racially biased was filed against an 1890 election law known as The Mississippi Plan, which requires that candidates must win the popular vote and a majority of districts.[195]
The following year, 79% of Mississippians voted to remove the requirement of doing so.[196] Under the new law, any candidate who receives a majority of statewide votes will be elected; if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, a statewide runoff election between the top two candidates will be held.[197]
These provisions were put in place with the 1890 Mississippi Constitution, itself established by the segregationist Redeemers and overturning the Reconstruction-era 1868 Constitution, as part of Jim Crow Era policy to minimize the power of African Americans in politics.[195]
Because of this, as well as present gerrymandering that packs African Americans into a small number of districts, the plaintiffs claimed that the provisions should be struck down on the basis of racial bias.[198] ...
