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”The greatest form of violence is poverty; it really reflects the best of who we are as Jacksonians when we respond to people in need. In our efforts as a city to create what we see as a dignity economy, we feel it is important that we focus on areas of need such as this.”
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— Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba announcing eviction relief funds from a collaboration between City of Jackson and the Salvation Army.
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Expanded Voting Access Still Off Table For Mississippians by Nick Judin
October 14 - 27, 2020 • jfp.ms
After legislative leadership killed the last attempts at expanding voting access in Mississippi during the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers are raising alarms that failure to prevent overcrowded polling places in November could have a deadly cost.
prevented adherence to mask mandates at the polls thus far. More importantly, the size of the gatherings anticipated for a presidential election are completely incomparable to
One-Way Socially Distant Trick-orTreating Ideas
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any children spend the weeks leading up to Halloween planning the costumes they will wear to score buckets full of candy. Trick-or-treating in 2020 can still be fun—and meet social-distancing practices—by employing one of these clever ideas or by coming up with something creative on your own.
the small special elections that have taken place in 2020 already. ‘A Missed Opportunity’ A few legislators who saw the threat
of packed polling places on Election Day during a pandemic mounted one last attempt to expand voting options for Mississippians concerned about threats to their safety from the vi-
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Set up a station with individually bagged treats for children to take home so that multiple hands are not reaching into a single bowl of candy.
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Create a candy slide or shute. Many materials could be used to create a slide that is at least six feet long so that hosts distributing candy can send the candy directly into treat-or-treaters’ buckets.
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Photo by Julia Raasch on Unsplash
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Photo by Tiffany Tertipes on Unsplash
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s October unfolds, Mississippi State Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, is watching the rising case numbers in what threatens to be the third spike in Mississippi’s COVID-19 pandemic, and he fears for the worst. In the waning days of the nearly endless 2020 legislative session, Blount was part of a last-ditch effort to expand access to absentee voting this year. His bill, aimed at reducing packed polling places in November, did not make it to the floor. Dying with it were Mississippi’s chances to challenge its reputation for the strictest laws regulating absentee voting in the nation. “To me it’s a complete no-brainer, and a total failure on behalf of the legislative leadership and Republicans,” Blount told the Jackson Free Press in a recent interview. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson does not appear to share Blount’s concerns. “Our plan is good, our plan is safe,” he announced on Oct. 2, joining a small pool of reporters for an update on election safety. Watson used the live-streamed event to assure Mississippians that a safe election was well in hand during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, even as Gov. Tate Reeves had ended the statewide mask mandate two days before, prefacing a sharp, sudden uptick in new cases. The secretary of state described visiting a special election in Humphreys County on Aug. 4, 2020, in which all poll workers assured him that they felt safe and well protected. That election took place on the first day of the statewide mask mandate—an order that had meaningful impact on reducing the spread of coronavirus in Mississippi. Watson argued that those restrictions have never applied to polling places, nor would they on Nov. 3. Watson’s position that it is unconstitutional to require masks at the polling place is consistent with the state’s guidance throughout COVID-19. But it is unclear how much that argument has
Create a pulley system that allows hosts to place candy in a bucket for children who visit their homes and then send the bucket toward the children so that they can reap the rewards. Be sure to only place enough candy for the visitors to take with them so that multiple people are not touching the same pool of candy, and sanitize the bucket between visitors. For extra fun, add a doll or other figure to the pulley system so that it looks like a fun or spooky character is passing out the goodies. Whatever the approach, be sure to keep the activities outdoors when possible, wash your hands before touching any treats, and mask up!
