Election commissioner; revise office to be nonpartisan.
HB 288 makes the Mississippi county election commissioner position nonpartisan. It prohibits candidates from campaigning based on political party and requires all commissioner candidates to be listed alphabetically on ballots without any party affiliation labels. The bill amends existing election laws to ensure ballots for this office display only candidate names, not party affiliations, and bans party-based campaigning for the role. This directly affects candidates running for election commissioner and voters who will see nonpartisan ballot listings for these positions.
Bill status
died
3 of 5 stages cleared
Introduction
Feb 2025
Committee Review
Feb 2025
House Passage
Feb 2025
Senate Passage
Governor
Introduced Feb 6, 2025
Last action Mar 4, 2025
Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison
What changed between versions
As Introduced
→
Current version
·
5 edits
MODERATE
This bill makes the Mississippi Election Commissioner office officially nonpartisan, prohibiting candidates from campaigning based on party affiliation and requiring their names to appear without party labels on ballots. The changes also update the Mississippi Code to reflect these nonpartisan requirements and clarify ballot formatting rules.
Scope change
The bill's scope expanded to explicitly codify nonpartisan status for the Election Commissioner office and modify ballot formatting requirements to exclude party affiliations for these candidates.
ELIGIBILITY
Candidates for Election Commissioner are now prohibited from campaigning or qualifying for the office based on party affiliation.
REQUIREMENT
Ballots must list Election Commissioner candidates in alphabetical order without any reference to political party affiliation.
Election Commissioner candidates must declare their party affiliation in writing to the board of supervisors, and this affiliation must be shown on the official ballot.
DEFINITION
The office of Election Commissioner is now explicitly defined as a nonpartisan office in the Mississippi Code.
TECHNICAL
Updated references in the Mississippi Code to conform to the new nonpartisan provisions and ballot formatting requirements.
Floor votes · House Feb 5, 2025
How they voted
110–6
Passed · 3 other
Total votes 119
Feb 5, 2025
D
Democratic39
89% Yea
I
Independent2
100% Yea
R
Republican78
93% Yea
Vote distribution
All Yea
All Nay
Mixed
No data
Full legislative history
Actions timeline
Total actions
6
Key actions
2
Committee
3
Feb 14, 2025
Committee
Referred To Elections
upper
Feb 6, 2025
Introduced
Transmitted To Senate
lower
Feb 5, 2025
Lower · Passed
Passed
lower
Jan 23, 2025
Lower · Passed
Title Suff Do Pass
lower
Jan 10, 2025
Committee
Referred To Apportionment and Elections
lower
1 primary · 0 co-sponsors
Sponsors
Role
Legislator
Party
State
District
P
Noah Sanford
RRepublican
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