The U.S. Senate race in Mississippi remains too close to call as election officials process outstanding ballots. As of midday Friday, November 6, fewer than 2,000 votes separated incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) and challenger Scott Colom (D).
The state's 82 counties manage their own tallies and are not required to transmit results to the Secretary of State until next week. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) stated on Friday that his office did not have a definitive count of outstanding ballots, though he noted that over 9,000 provisional ballots had been processed by that time.
A significant portion of the uncounted votes consists of provisional ballots, known in Mississippi as affidavit ballots. The Colom campaign estimated late Tuesday, November 3, that there were more than 15,000 such ballots, while the state Republican Party chair suggested on Thursday, November 5, that there could be 20,000 outstanding votes, including absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day.
If the estimate of 15,000 affidavit ballots is accurate, it would represent roughly 1.5% of the total vote. Mississippi is one of the few states that requires voters marked as "inactive" on voter rolls to vote via affidavit rather than casting a regular ballot. This process requires local officials to manually review additional forms to confirm eligibility. Michael Morse, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, suggested that the state's use of credit data to maintain voter rolls, paired with the affidavit requirement for inactive voters, could introduce unreliability. Secretary Watson defended the registration process on social media, stating that the extra time required for affidavit voting adds to "election integrity" by maintaining cleaner voter rolls.
Absentee ballots can legally be received through Tuesday, November 10, provided they were postmarked by Election Day. Final results will remain unconfirmed until the counties complete their verification and certification processes and transmit the data to the Secretary of State's office.