US midterm elections: Why five states have slavery on the ballot in 2022

[Scott]

It's 157 years since the US constitution banned chattel slavery - in which one person is the legal property of another - but left in place an exemption for convicted prisoners.

Throughout most of the US, slavery is still legal as punishment for a crime.

But on 8 November, voters in five states - Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont - will decide whether to remove these exemptions from their state constitutions in an effort to ban slavery entirely

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63338784