JACKSON, Miss. — Bolivar County workers counted ballots again on Friday morning. Their tally moved Democrat Scott Colom a little further ahead of Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith: 1,936 votes now separate the two. Across Mississippi, thousands of affidavit and mail ballots remain uncounted, and the Senate race remains uncalled.
The newest votes came from Bolivar County. It counted 184 more votes for Colom on Friday morning and 61 more for Hyde-Smith, the Mississippi Free Press reported. That left Colom at 49.1% statewide, to 48.8% for Hyde-Smith.
Affidavit ballots in Bolivar County have not been counted yet, the county circuit clerk’s office said. Colom led in the county by 70% to 29%, with about 94% of its votes in, the Free Press reported.
No winner has been called by The Associated Press. The count stood at 96% of all votes after Thursday’s 5:44 p.m. update, the Washington Examiner reported. A call is unlikely before next week: mail ballots have five business days after Election Day to arrive.
Letters over affidavit ballots
Hyde-Smith has not conceded. On X, she said: “Cindy Hyde-Smith is going to represent Mississippi in the United States Senate for the next six years.”
Thousands of votes are still out in dozens of Republican counties, Hyde-Smith said, and she expects them to help her. “We believe thousands of votes remain to be counted from dozens of Republican counties, and we are confident those votes will reinforce her path to victory,” Hyde-Smith said. Counting, she said, has to be allowed to run its course, so that every lawful ballot is counted.
Her campaign went further on Thursday. Lawyers for her campaign and for the National Republican Senatorial Committee wrote to election officials in all 82 counties. They asked that affidavit ballots be kept apart from regular and absentee ballots.
The letter said the step was needed so that each affidavit ballot’s eligibility for counting, and what happens to it, can be verified.
Colom’s side answered the same night. His campaign manager said the campaign is confident Colom’s lead will keep growing as the last votes are counted, and lawyers for Colom called the Hyde-Smith demands “unlawful and extraordinary measures.”
“Those demands have no basis in Mississippi law, and if you depart from ordinary election procedures as you have been asked to do, you will violate Mississippi voters’ rights and Mississippi election law,”
The Elias Law Group is leading that legal effort for Colom. Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias said a day after the election that his firm would take part, and by late Thursday he said the firm was representing Colom.
No recount route
Mississippi law makes no provision for an automatic recount, and it does not let a candidate ask for one either. The candidate who finishes behind is therefore unlikely to win an official recount.
Hyde-Smith has held the seat since 2018 and is seeking a second full term. Democrats have already won control of the Senate in Tuesday’s midterms, and a Colom win would widen their majority by one more seat.
If he holds on, Colom would also make history in the state. He would be the first Black senator from Mississippi since the Reconstruction era.
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