A challenge to lifetime disenfranchisement of voting rights for convicted felons in Mississippi failed Thursday, with a divided federal appeals court ruling it is an issue for the legislature, not the courts.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in an en banc ruling where six of the 19 judges dissented, held that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1974 decisionin Richardson v. Ramirez expressly permits states to enact felon disenfranchisement.