Scott Colom, a district attorney from Columbus, led Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by about 2,000 votes in Mississippi’s Senate race on Friday, with the count not finished. If it holds, he becomes the first Black senator from the state since Reconstruction and the first Democrat it has sent to the Senate in 40 years. Donald Trump carried Mississippi by 23 points in 2024.
The race is not over, and the next phase is about whose ballots get counted. Lisa Ross, a voting rights attorney monitoring election officials as they process the remainder, has put the number of outstanding affidavit ballots at between 14,000 and 18,000. Those are ballots cast by voters whose eligibility was questioned at the polls, often over ID or registration. Around 3,300 mailed absentee ballots are also still out, and they count if they were postmarked by Election Day and arrive by Nov. 10.
Hyde-Smith’s lawyers did not wait for the numbers to settle. In a letter to election commissioners in all 82 counties, they demanded that officials separate the affidavit ballots, document what happens to each one and preserve “all associated materials.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee made the same demand publicly. Colom’s campaign called it a “desperate stunt.” His lawyers have answered that segregating ballots would violate state election law and voters’ rights.
Mississippi has no recount procedure, so what the counties decide in the next week is close to final. Voters who came to the polls without ID have until Nov. 10 to present it. Counties must certify by Nov. 13.
The affidavit pile is where Black voters have the most at stake. Hinds County, which is majority Black and heavily Democratic, still has a significant number of votes to process. In Lafayette County, Colom won the provisional ballots counted so far 69% to 29%, far wider than his margin there on ordinary ballots. Those are the votes a legal fight would target.
Black voters carried this race in a state Trump won by 23 points. “Black voters in Mississippi did everything right,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said, announcing the group would send legal staff to monitor the count.
Mississippi’s own rules are the ones in play, and they are clear enough. A voter who followed them and whose ballot was kept in a separate pile should not have to win a lawsuit to be counted. Every affidavit ballot that meets the state’s requirements has to be counted, and county officials should refuse any request to treat them differently from the rest. Counties certify Nov. 13.
Have your say