Kenny Wayne Jones (pictured) chairs the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, which asked the U.S. Justice Department to block Mississippi's voter ID law. Photo by R.L. Nave.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus is asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to block the state's plan to start using a voter identification law.
In a letter dated Wednesday and released Thursday, the caucus says requiring ID will disproportionately hurt minorities and voters who are elderly or disabled.
Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann has said ID will first be required in the June 3 federal primaries.
Mississippians approved a voter ID constitutional amendment in 2011, and legislators put the mandate into law in 2012.
At that time, Mississippi and other states with a history of racial discrimination needed federal approval to alter election laws. Mississippi's voter ID proposals were still being analyzed by the Justice Department last summer when a Supreme Court ruling erased the requirement for federal approval.
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