Elections Conversations: Sen. Jeremy England, Mississippi

Elections Conversations: Sen. Jeremy England, Mississippi

Tapped to chair his chamber's Elections Committee in 2024, England is also a member of NCSL's Elections and Redistricting Standing Committee.

NCSL's Elections and Redistricting team is interviewing local election officials and legislative election leaders to highlight the work they're doing to improve election policy and administration in the U.S. To see other installments in this monthly series, visit Election Conversations.

Jeremy England was interested in public service long before winning his Mississippi Senate seat by 35 votes in a 2020 runoff. He was student council president in high school, vice president of the student association at Mississippi State University and a participant in student government at the University of Mississippi School of Law.

After being reelected in 2024, England was tapped by the lieutenant governor and Senate leadership to chair the chamber's Elections Committee. "One thing I've learned about serving on the Elections Committee is that it is very important to every single person in the Legislature-really every single person in the state, too," he says.

NCSL recently talked with England about working with local election commissioners, legislation from the 2025 session, legislative plans for the upcoming session and chairing NCSL's Elections and Redistricting Standing Committee.

How do you work with your local election commissioners and the circuit clerks who administer elections?

Back in 2020, before I was chair of the Elections Committee, I was approached by my local election commissioner to be a poll worker in the 2020 election. It was very beneficial to see things from their end of the table. I've developed very good relationships with my local commissioners. Also, our circuit clerks handle our absentee voting, so I talk with both groups often and participate in commissioner and circuit clerk state association conferences. Different regions have different needs for polling places, and I've talked with commissioners about how to engage more people to become poll workers. It wouldn't be fair of me to go to Jackson and make laws that apply to them without talking to them first. They have to implement the laws we make, so we want them to be workable for them.

What legislation did the Senate Elections Committee work on in 2025?

Last year, we passed a bill to incentivize election workers by raising Election Day pay for commissioners and poll workers. We passed a bill to move our congressional primaries to March in even years to increase turnout in these elections. We extended our runoffs from three weeks to four weeks after a general election. This allows more time for election commissioners to prepare for the runoff, plus candidates liked it, too. We also had a bipartisan bill that prohibits polling locations from moving within 60 days of an election, with the exception of an emergency.

The big debate last year was early voting. Mississippi is one of only three states that does not offer no-excuse early voting. If passed, the bill would have allowed early voting for the two weeks before Election Day, and it would have allowed voters to put their own ballot into the tabulating machine. We got a bit of a late start to the session, so there wasn't enough time to work out our difference with the bills beforehand. I think it's something Mississippi is ready for. We see 47 other states doing it, and we've heard from the clerks that voters want to be able to vote early.

What are the committee's priorities for the upcoming session?

We're looking at campaign finance again. We've been working with the secretary of state to develop an online campaign finance report system. For the past two years, I've had similar bills to address the current system that is not uniform and is mostly by hand. I think a new system will allow for more transparency. If the bill passes, we will make it have an implementation date for 2027 or 2028, so the secretary of state has time to create the system and invite people to test it out. We're also looking at ways to better enforce campaign laws by giving the secretary of state, the lieutenant governor and the attorney general more discretion to ensure that candidates are following the rules.

Something we're keeping an eye on is the status of the case before the Supreme Court that deals with Mississippi's five-day absentee ballot postmark receipt deadline. This has put Mississippi election law front and center nationally. I've introduced legislation in the past to require all absentee ballots to be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, but we aren't planning to preemptively pass anything. The issue is in the hands of the judicial system, and we will respond accordingly.

Additionally, we've been talking to the secretary of state about bills that look at election technology and updating cybersecurity. There are funds available through the secretary of state to make sure that election equipment across the state is up to standard, and it is important that equipment is secure for election integrity.

What have you learned by being part of NCSL's Elections and Redistricting Standing Committee?

I'm a big believer in letting states operate as laboratories for democracy, and it is so useful to learn about what's going on in other states. Last year at the standing committee meeting, I had the opportunity to talk to colleagues from all across the country about their election policies. We learned about how Alaska deploys their voting systems and materials to remote areas, and how Louisiana does an "I voted" sticker contest each year, for example. I found it interesting to learn about the different challenges in each state and what technology they use. AI has been a big topic lately, and talking with these committee members helps us more quickly address problems like deepfakes. I look forward to working more with NCSL and committee colleagues this year.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.