This week in the War on Voting: The Mississippi Catch-22

(Mother Jones) Here's a bit of a problem for Mississippi voters. If you don't have acceptable photo identification to vote, you have to have your birth certificate to get a voter ID. But you can't get your birth certificate unless you have photo identification. This is apparently a problem that state officials were well aware of, but not really doing anything about.

Pamela Weaver, spokeswoman of the Mississippi Secretary of State's office, today confirmed the catch-22 problem, which the Jackson Free Press learned about from a complaint posted on Facebook. One of the requirements to get the free voter ID cards is a birth certificate, but in order to receive a certified copy of your birth certificate in Mississippi, you must have a photo ID. Not having the photo ID is why most people need the voter ID in the first place.

The new voter ID law, thankfully, can't be implemented because the Department of Justice hasn't cleared it. Mississippi is among the states that have to submit changes to voting laws for approval by Justice under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Voters, though, are left in limbo, not sure of their voting eligibility come November. That uncertainty doesn't seem to bother Mississippi officials. According to Justice, they met with state officials in early December to talk about how the state could move forward with the new law, and the state has yet to present a plan.

Limbo and confusion are among the tools Republicans deploy to keep voters away from the polls. Anything that can make voting the most cumbersome as possible, to make people give up before even trying, is nearly as effective as just taking the vote away from them. It appears to be what Mississippi has chosen to use this election.

And for more of that story for the week, make the jump below the fold.