Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann is reminding Mississippi voters of the three Constitutional Initiatives that will be on the November 8 ballot.  He states in a November 1 email, “Voters will decide three constitutional initiatives: Personhood, Voter ID, and Eminent Domain. … Only two [prior initiatives] have ever made it to a statewide vote prior to this year—both addressed term limits and both failed.”

Mississippians will be asked to vote yes or no to the following questions:

•          Should the term “person” be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or equivalent thereof?
•          Should the Mississippi Constitution be amended to require a person to submit government issued photo identification in order to vote?
•          Should government be prohibited from taking private property by eminent domain and then transferring it to other persons?

This writer fully agrees with the Secretary of State that “Mississippians [must] educate themselves on not only their candidates, but also these initiatives prior to the election.”   He adds, “For an initiative to pass, it not only must receive a majority of votes cast (fifty percent, plus one), it must also receive 40% of total votes cast.”

The Secretary of State adds a point with which this blogger disagrees.  He encourages every voter “to vote all the way to the end of the ballot,” adding that “these initiatives need to be determined on their merit, and not a technicality.”  For voters who decline to vote on these initiatives because they feel they lack sufficient information, declining to vote yes or no is not a “technicality.”  I say, gather information, but, if you do not and feel insufficiently informed, take a pass.  The ramifications of an ill-informed vote could be – to borrow one of my older son’s favorites – “severe.”

The better option is to learn about the initiatives, and then cast an informed vote.  A great source of information and comment appears at www.sos.ms.gov/elections/initiatives.  Take time to read these discussions prior to the election.