The Only State Where Winning The Popular Vote Doesn’t Guarantee Win

There was an interesting new post at the Sun Herald by author Bobby Harrison:

Mississippi is the only state in the nation where a candidate could garner a majority vote (more than 50 percent) and not win the statewide office he or she was pursuing.

There is a distinct possibility that this November, Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood could win more than 50 percent of the vote in his campaign for the governor’s office and still be back home in Chickasaw County in January enjoying retirement from public service and not residing in the Governor’s Mansion.

Four black Mississippi voters — Leslie-Burl McLemore of Lake Cormorant, Charles Holmes of Jackson, Jimmy Robinson Sr. of Jackson and Roderick Woullard of Hattiesburg — have filed a lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of Mississippi in an effort to make sure that does not happen. They maintain that the language in the 1890 state Constitution that potentially throws close statewide elections to the House to decide is in violation of the U.S. Constitution because it dilutes black voter strength.

See the full story here.