This fall in Mississippi, a group of elected officials could block the candidate who wins a majority of statewide votes from assuming the Governor’s Mansion and the attorney general’s office. And it would be completely legal. That’s because of a long-overlooked provision in the state’s 1890 Constitution. The measure requires candidates for statewide office to win not just a majority of the vote but also a majority of the 122 districts in the state House. If a candidate wins a majority of the statewide vote but not a majority of the districts, the members of the Republican-controlled state House choose who wins the election. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the Mississippi House of Representatives picks a winner from the two candidates who received the most votes. The provision has received little attention until recently, when four Black Mississippi voters filed a federal lawsuit arguing that it discriminates against African Americans. Although Black people make up 38%of the state, they are a majority in only 42 of the state’s 122 House districts, according to NPR. The provision was part of an explicit effort during Mississippi’s 1890 constitutional convention to suppress the Black vote, experts say, and has helped keep Black people out of statewide offices for years. It could do the same in the next election, when attorney general candidate Jennifer Riley Collins seeks to become the first Black statewide-elected official in nearly 150 years. Collins, a Democrat, along with gubernatorial candidate and current Attorney General Jim Hood (D), who is white, could win a majority of statewide gubernatorial votes but not a majority of the House districts. That’s unless a federal judge strikes down the constitutional provision.A federal judge in Jackson is set to hear oral arguments in McLemore v. Hosemann on Friday.

Alex Wong via Getty Images Observers believe Democrat Jim Hood could win a majority of the statewide vote in Mississippi but be blocked from becoming governor this fall.

The four plaintiffs in the case are longtime Mississippi voters, two of whom had to pay poll taxes and three had to pass tests to register to vote decades ago. In court filings, their lawyers argue Mississippi’s system for choosing statewide elected officials is both unconstitutional and illegal because Black-preferred candidates have to win more statewide votes than their white counterparts to get elected. The provision is rooted in efforts to suppress Black people. After the 15th Amendment prohibited officials from denying voting rights based on race, the Mississippi delegates who met in 1890 sought to limit the power of the newly enfranchised black population in the state. Along with the requirements for winning statewide office, they adopted measures like poll taxes and literacy tests that made it harder for Black people to vote. The plan succeeded and significantly reduced the number of eligible Black voters in the state. Mississippi hasn’t elected an African American to statewide office in well over a century. “They focused on coming up with a particular means by which to achieve the goal of white supremacy without violating any federal constitutional safeguards. No other state had attempted that,” said John Winkle III, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Mississippi. “That’s the way the law was set in 1890, and it was clearly the product of the white supremacy overtones of the entire constitution itself.” Over time, the federal courts and government got rid of poll taxes and literacy tests. But in Mississippi, the special conditions to win statewide office remained. Riley Collins, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, said it was obvious the provision in the state Constitution was only about race. “The crafters of that provision indicated that this was about limiting the power of Black [elected officials]. And so for someone to later try to be revisionist in history is not reading ― they are not reading what the crafters themselves said,” she said in an interview with HuffPost. “We can deny it all day ― it is what it is.”

We can deny it all day ― it is what it is. Jennifer Riley Collins, Mississippi attorney general candidate