Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann pops voter ID opponents, this one, an academic at Wisconsin and on the payroll of Voter ID plaintiffs: ” As part of Mississippi’s implementation, we provided free transportation to any citizen to the local circuit clerk’s office (99 percent of the citizens of Mississippi live within 20 miles of a circuit clerk’s office); we provided free verification for birth certificates at the circuit clerk’s office and free issuance of a Mississippi voter ID. Over 2,000 of those were issued. Following any election, voters are given a week to return with photo identification and verify their ballot.

The unsubstantiated claim as to the availability and the possession of photo identification by any voting population is totally false. In two statewide elections, which included both Democratic and Republican primaries, 99.9 percent of Mississippians exhibited satisfactory photo identification. No one was deprived of their right to vote. Particularly, the reference to the quote that our state continues “to deprive people of their vote, with the same sordid racial overtones continues today” is false, an unsubstantiated personal opinion and not those of the voting citizens of the state of Mississippi. No litigation was filed concerning Mississippi’s implementation of voter ID by the U.S. Department of Justice, any citizens group, or any citizen.”