A challenge to lifetime disenfranchisement of voting rights for convicted felons in Mississippi failed, with a 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 a split en banc ruling where six circuit judges dissented, the majority held that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1974 opinion in Richardson v. Ramirez expressly permits states to enact felon disenfranchisement.