The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed Thursday that a section of the Mississippi Constitution that banned felons from voting for life did not violate the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution and was thereby constitutional.

Dennis Hopkins, a disenfranchised voter, claimed that the Mississippi Constitution created a “cruel and unusual punishment” for the lifetime voting ban, breaching the Eighth Amendment, and violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth.

Section 241 of the Mississippi Constitution states that only those who have never been convicted of felonies like murder, rape, bribery, arson, theft, forgery, embezzlement, or obtaining money or goods under false pretenses, are qualified to vote.

In a landmark US Supreme Court case from the 1970s, Richarson v. Ramirez, the court held that the act of disenfranchising felons does not run afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The majority of the Fifth Circuit held section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which reduces states’ representation in Congress who deny the franchise “except for participation in rebellion, or other crime,” was to be taken at face value, which is illustrated through legislative history, tracing as far back as the Reconstructive Act of 1867. The Reconstructive Act stated that delegates within each state should closely conform to the US Constitution and possess certain qualifications, including “except such as may be disenfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony at common law.”

Hopkins also claimed that Section 241 of the Mississippi Constitution violated the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution because the lifetime ban of voting for felons, such as himself, was “cruel and unusual” punishment. The court evaluated if the Mississippi Constitution was intended to be a punitive measure. The court found that Section 241 regulates the elections in Mississippi and does not outline criminal punishments. Therefore, it is not a penal measure, much less a cruel and unusual one.

The court stated that disenfranchised voters should lobby with state legislatures to change the rules in their state constitution rather than seek to change the rules through the judicial system.