Salter: Election turnout up in air

STARKVILLE — Predicting turnout in the 2015 general election in Mississippi will be difficult if not impossible and that fact makes projecting the fate of the hottest race on the ballot – the decision regarding Initiative 42 — even more difficult.
But a look back just four years at state voter behavior provides some suggestions.
In the 2011 Mississippi general election, some 893,648 voters turned to vote in the governor’s race between eventual winner Republican Phil Bryant and Democrat Johnny Dupree in a race that saw Bryant take 544,851 votes to Dupree’s 348,617. So 893,468 voters went to the polls in that election.
Several down ticket races were contested — Democratic incumbent Attorney General Jim Hood took 536,827 votes to 342,086 for Republican challenger Steve Simpson. 
Much farther down the 2011 ballot were three ballot initiatives.
Initiative 26 was the so-called “personhood” initiative that proposed to redefine the word “person” in the state constitution to include fertilized human eggs and undeveloped embryos. The ballot wording was as follows: “Should the term ‘person’ be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the equivalent thereof?” 
Voters were asked to weigh in with a “yes” or “no” vote. Some 500,459 (57.63 percent) responded with a resounding “no” to 367,991 “yes” votes and the initiative failed. 
The second ballot question in 2011 was Initiative No. 27, the voter ID amendment, which sought to implement virtually the mirror image of the Indiana voter ID law in Mississippi that had previously passed muster with the U.S. Supreme Court. 
The ballot wording was straightforward: “Should the Mississippi Constitution be amended to require a person to submit government issued photo identification in order to vote?” 
Voter ID passed with 538,656 (62.07 percent) votes to 329,105 opposed. Many believed that Republicans would be motivated to turn out in higher numbers to vote for it, but in reality it apparently motivated Democrats to turn out to vote against it as well.
The third 2011 ballot initiative was Initiative No. 31, the eminent domain initiative. The ballot wording is: “Should government be prohibited from taking private property by eminent domain and then transferring it to other persons?” Again, voters were asked to weigh in with a “yes” or “no” vote.
The voters approved Initiative 31 by a whopping 638,527 (73.07 percent) to 235,411 margin – despite this being one of the few issues in which former Gov. Haley Barbour was totally out of step with the majority of the state’s voters.
So in addition to seeing how Mississippi voters behaved on three distinct and somewhat partisan ballot initiatives in 2011, what can we glean from those results? Well, voter ID as an issue was a darling of the state’s conservative voters and got a little over 62 percent of the vote in passing.
Eminent domain was an issue that seemed to cross party lines in passing with over 73 percent of the vote and with the help of the Mississippi Farm Bureau but over the opposition of a number of pro-business groups and Gov. Barbour.
Personhood failed handily with over 57 percent opposed in one of the most conservative states in America.
So in the cases of Initiative 42 and Initiative 42A, the first question will ask them to choose between “either measure” or “neither measure” becoming law. Then, voters will confront the actual initiative questions, which they can vote for or against, regardless of their answer to the first question. 
If a majority chooses “either measure,” then the measure from the second question with the most votes will become law, so long as that measure also receives at least 40 percent of the total number of ballots cast in the election. If a majority chooses “neither measure,” then neither amendment becomes law. 
In other words, initiative voting is long, unwieldy and difficult. It was designed to be so. Now, for the first time in our state’s history, there are competing ballot initiatives. 
But other than Hood’s race with GOP challenger Mike Hurst, what statewide race really draws voters to the polls this time around? That question is the hole card for supporters of Initiative 42. Low turnout among conservative voters will complement an organized, well-financed get-out-the-vote effort by backers of the initiative.

Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.