Mississippi voters have until 7 p.m. Tuesday to cast their ballots for U.S. President, Congress, Senate and several judicial races.

Below is all the information you need to know before heading to the polls:

How to find your voting precinct:

Along with providing access to other information, registered voters can use the Mississippi Secretary of State’s My Election Day tool to locate their polling place. My Election Day also provides voters with a sample ballot, a list of current office holders and contact information for local election officials.

State voters also can just contact the agency’s website to find more information about polling locations and contact information of election commissioners.

Who is on the ballot?

This year’s federal elections include three contested congressional elections and one in the Senate, as well for the U.S. President. Also on the ballots will be three contested judicial races in the Mississippi Supreme Court and the Mississippi Court of Appeals.

Congressional races

As for congressional races, incumbent Republicans Trent Kelly (Dist. 1) and Mike Ezell (Dist. 3) face Dianne Black and Craig Raybon, respectively. Dist. 2 House Rep. Bennie Thompson is facing Republican challenger Ron Eller, and Dist. 3 Rep. Michael Guest, a Republican, is running unopposed.

Those races are not statewide, so only the candidates in your districts will be on the ballot. For example, only Thompson and Eller will be on the U.S. House section of the Nov. 5 ballot in District 2.

Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican, is facing challenger Ty Pinkins. The U.S. Senate race is statewide just like the presidential race, so it will be on ballots throughout the state.

Presidential race

On the presidential ticket, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, is facing former Republican President Donald Trump. A few third-party candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy, who earlier this year endorsed Trump, before withdrawing from the race.

Congressional campaign finances: Mississippi’s US Senate, House candidates raise millions for Nov. 5. Read how much

For more information, look at this year’s sample ballot.

Mississippi judicial candidates

As for the state judicial races, 10 candidates are running for seats on the state supreme court and appellate court.

Incumbents in the Supreme Court races are Central District Justice Jim Kitchens and Southern District Justice Dawn Beam. The state appellate court does not have an incumbent this year.

The court races are not statewide but districted. To check what district you are in, look at the Mississippi Secretary of State’s website.

Judicial campaign finances: How much cash MS judicial candidates raised before Nov. 5 election. What companies donated?

Kitchens is facing four challengers: State Sen. Jenifer Branning, R-Philadelphia, and former Mississippi Appeals Court Judge Ceola James and private practice attorneys Byron Carter and Abby Gale Robinson.

Beam is facing off against David Sullivan, a Gulfport-based attorney who has been city prosecutor and is a municipal judge in D’Iberville.

Running in the appellate court race are Jennifer Schloegel, a chancery court judge for the 8th District, which encompasses Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties; Ian Baker, an assistant district attorney and division chief for the office in Gulfport and Amy St. Pe’, a Pascagoula attorney.

When do polls open?

Polls will open Tuesday at 7 a.m. and close Tuesday at 7 p.m. Voters who are in line by 7 p.m. can still vote as long as they stay in line.

What should you bring to the polls with you?

Mississippi voters are required to provide photo identification when voting, commonly known as Voter ID. Below are acceptable forms of Voter ID:

• A driver’s license (including a Digital ID provided by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety)
• A photo ID card issued by a branch, department, or entity of the State of Mississippi
• A United States passport
• A government employee ID card
• A firearms license
• A student photo ID issued by an accredited Mississippi university, college or community/junior college
• A United States military ID
• A tribal photo ID
• Any other photo ID issued by any branch, department, agency or entity of the United States government or any state government
• A Mississippi Voter Identification Card

A voter who does not have photo ID on election day will be asked to vote via affidavit ballot. They will then have five business days to show an acceptable form of photo ID or apply for a Mississippi Voter ID Card, at their local circuit clerk’s office.

Voters should also consider bringing water and a cell phone with them to the polls in anticipation of lines. Voters who have difficulty or questions can contact the secretary of state’s elections division at 1-800-829-6786

What if I voted absentee or by affidavit?

Absentee and affidavit voters can track the status of their ballots through the My Election Day tool as well. There is a new tracker for both absentee and affidavit ballots. All mail-in absentee ballots must be postmarked by election day to be counted.

How can I follow the election results?

Preliminary results will begin to be announced shortly after the polls close at 7 p.m. The secretary of state will not release official results on election, but preliminary statewide figures will be posted live to the Clarion Ledger’s Mississippi Election Results page at www.ClarionLedger.com.

Further absentee ballots will be tallied in the days following the election, which could determine whether a race will extend into a runoff.

Grant McLaughlin covers state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@gannett.com or 972-571-2335.

Since January 2011, the state of Mississippi has contracted a NY based company, ActiveHealthⓇ Management, a former subsidiary of Aetna and currently owned by CVS Health. 

ActiveHealth Management purportedly provides comprehensive health and wellness management services to the State and School Employees Health Insurance Plan to improve health among more than 197,000 active employees, dependents, spouses and retirees.  

The company has received four consecutive contracts valued at a nearly $64,000,000. Yet, it has not produced one evaluation report on its efficacy because the Department of Finance Administration does not require it to assess employees’ health outcomes.

According to Cindy Bradshaw, former State Insurance Administrator, DFA administers patient satisfaction surveys about their experiences within the ActiveHealth Management program. Patient satisfaction surveys are designed to determine how a person feels about or perceives her/his experience with something or someone; it does not determine whether the experience was effective and to what degree.

This is particularly concerning for pregnant state employees who are at risk for pre-term births and Cesarean deliveries, the No. 1 surgery in the state of MS and the nation.

Annually, Mississippi pays for over 90% of prenatal care and births in the state through Mississippi Medicaid and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi plans. In 2022, members in both plans experienced comparable Cesarean delivery rates. About 39% of BCBS of MS members experienced a Cesarean delivery and 37% Medicaid members, according to data from the Mississippi State Department of Health. Also, 20% of BCBS members and 21% of Medicaid members, whose labor was induced, subsequently delivered via a Cesarean. The State paid an estimated average of $27.4 million for Medicaid-members and $30.6 million for BCBS-members who had Cesarean deliveries.

Furthermore, those members who had a first-time Cesarean delivery have a 90% probability of experiencing a repeat procedure because only a handful of providers in Mississippi will attempt to deliver a vaginal birth after a Cesarean delivery. 

Liz Welch, DFA’s executive director, said she wasn’t aware of the birth outcomes of state employees and would request a report from BCBS of MS, the state’s plan administrator. I am almost certain she did not.

Since 2019, I have administered a community health worker program that provides preventive based services to pregnant residents, including state employees. I have found ActiveHealth Management’s maternity program to be extremely insufficient and ineffective as it does not address the complex underlying risk factors influencing common negative birth outcomes in Mississippi. 

Underlying preventable risk factors affecting most pregnant women in Mississippi are maternal obesity and smoking that can lead to gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, Cesarean deliveries, preterm babies, low birth weight babies, NICU babies, and maternal and infant mortality. Annually Mississippi residents experience the highest rates of maternal obesity (37.6%), fetal deaths (9.5), Cesarean deliveries (39%), preterm births (15), low birth weight (13), maternal mortality (43) and infant mortality (9.2) in the nation. 

ActiveHealth Management’s maternity intervention involves nurses making three phone calls to  pregnant state employees and one call after the baby is born. 

The nurse asks a list of general questions such as, “how’s your overall health,” “how’s your pregnancy going so far,” “any medical concerns,” “are you taking prenatal vitamins,” “what you know about pre-eclampsia,” etc. 

There is no face-to-face engagement between the employee and nurse, including no home visits and no birth support. The nurse doesn’t assist the employee with developing a prenatal dietary and exercise plan, a birth plan, healthy birth practices to prevent medically unnecessary labor inductions, and Cesarean deliveries.  She does not provide crucial childbirth education and breastfeeding and postpartum support, which is needed in the home.

Providing exclusive phone support during pregnancy has been shown to reduce risk for depression, but it does not improve risky health behaviors, e.g. smoking, sedentary, unhealthy foods or birth outcomes. Data show that neither phone nor short message support are effective at reducing prenatal smoking, improving prenatal body mass index, reducing preterm births, and Cesarean deliveries.

In contrast, there is considerable evidence showing that community health worker programs, which provide in-personal maternal health education and birth assistance, are significantly effective at changing risky behaviors and improving healthcare decisions that lead to better prenatal health and birth outcomes.

Community health workers can provide a supportive social network, motivate and drive pregnant patients at risk to make healthy lifestyle changes that reduce maternal obesity, stress and anxiety and improve physical health, which subsequently reduces maternal morbidities associated with pre-eclampsia, preterm births, and Cesarean deliveries.

In 2021, I initiated a dialogue with ActiveHealth Management’s medical leadership about enhancing its program through the integration of community health workers.  My suggestion was met with resentment and rejection. They stated they would do no more than their contract requires.

The State will issue a new RFP in 2025 and likely renew ActiveHealth Management’s contract.  It should seriously consider reducing the value of the contract and redirecting a substantial amount of funding to the Mississippi Department of Health’s Community Health Worker Program.

The MS Department of Health could train, certify, and strategically deploy community health workers across the State to deliver evidence based, maternity services, which would be more feasible and effective than ActiveHealth Management’s telephonic/virtual program.

— Getty Israel, MPH, is a population health specialist in the Jackson area.

NATCHEZ – More than $7.7 million in federal dollars will help fund improvements to the Natchez Railway, the only east-west railway serving rural Southwest Mississippi.

U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., announced more than $170 million in funding from the Department of Transportation for bridge and railway projects in Mississippi. Among those is the $7,734,717 to create new rail connections to shippers and improve the safety and performance of rail shipments along the Natchez Railway.

The critical railroad line into Natchez faced abandonment in 2009 until Natchez Inc., private business leaders and county and city officials convinced the rail line’s owners it was possible to make money from it instead. A $16 million public-private project to rehabilitate that railroad line, which is considered “the gold standard” of short-line railways, was completed in March 2022.

“I was glad to support these projects. They will help create jobs, keep freight deliveries on time, and boost economic development. These rail lines will help keep Mississippi moving,” Wicker said in a statement.