According to a federal court ruling, Mississippi voters will now have to register as Republican or Democrat. Now, I admit I’m just learning about this, so I’ll try to get it right, or at least not to screw it up too bad, if you promise to follow along.

In Mississippi, as in many southern states, many white people vote Democratic in local elections but vote Republican in statewide or national ones. So Mississippi went heavily for President Bush twice and has a Republican governor and a narrowly-Republican state Senate, but it also has a heavily Democratic state House and a plurality of local Democratic office-holders, such as sheriffs.

Here’s how a federal court got involved. In Mississippi as elsewhere, a HUGE percentage of black voters are Democrats. Some black lawmakers sued to stop moderate-to-conservative white folks from “crossing over” and voting Democratic in the primaries. Apparently, under the existing process many whites were becoming Democratic candidates for local office even if they supported Republicans nationally. 85% of white voters in Mississippi voted for Bush in 2004. Many black Democrats felt their party was fielding candidates who weren’t true Democrats, including a disproportionate share of white candidates. They sued to force voters to register one way or the other and a judge agreed.

Now, voters will have to register one way or the other, and the experts are predicting that whites will overwhelmingly register as Republicans, essentially disassociating themselves from the Democratic party.

If this unfolds as the article suggests, several things will happen:

• Congressional districts, which are already heavily weighted toward either “black” or “Republican”, will become even more so. In many more political contests, white or black will mean the same thing as Republican or Democrat.
• The old alliance between moderate, socially-progressive whites and traditionally-Democratic blacks on issues like education will be sundered, or at least badly shaken. The real question, of course, is whether or not this is a good thing. If your chief concern is promoting a certain kind of liberal policy, it is not, because whites from this alliance may be pushed permanently into the Republican camp. On the other hand, if you are a black voter who feels like whites are playing you by using your support to prop up their Democratic “local” efforts while they support Republicans at the national level, then this change is beneficial.
• The days of Yellow Dog Democrats, long on the wane in the deep south, will finally be over. Forced to choose, a huge majority of whites may plant themselves firmly on the Republican side in elections at all levels.

If you’re like me, you’re a little curious about numbers not supplied in the Times article. Mississippi is 61% white and 37% black according to the 2005 interim count. Indiana, by way of local contrast, is 86% and 9% respectively, so it would be difficult to make meaningful comparisons.

Not everyone votes, of course, but if 85% of white voters voted for Bush and 61% of potential voters are white, then 85% of 61% equals 52%, a majority all by itself. This suggests that blacks may be able to get white cross-overs out of the Democratic party and assure more black candidates and more black political control of black areas, but it also means that prospects for any coalition-building to achieve statewide goals or to affect national elections are very dim.

I don’t actually have a strong opinion on this—sorry—but I thought it was worth bringing to everyone’s attention in case you missed it. I gladly welcome any comments that shine further light on this issue for me and for others.

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