Republicans Demand Mississippi Preserve Affidavit Ballots as Colom's Senate Lead Edges Toward 2,000 Votes

Mississippi has no recount law, so a challenge would have to be a lawsuit rather than a request. Voters who lacked identification have until 10 November to bring it to their county circuit clerk, and counties have until 13 November to certify.

Are the affidavit ballots helping Colom?

The first county-level tallies suggest so. In Lafayette County, home of the University of Mississippi, affidavit ballots went 142 for Colom and 60 for Hyde-Smith, 69 percent to 29 percent, from 207 cast, the Free Press reported. That is far ahead of his 49.4 percent to 48.3 percent edge in the county overall, which was itself a 23-point swing from Donald Trump's win there in 2024. If other counties behave similarly, the affidavit pile could widen his margin rather than close it.

The pile is large. The Free Press said as many as 20,000 votes were outstanding statewide, many of them affidavit ballots, and Hinds County, Colom's strongest, was still verifying affidavits across 108 precincts, with chair Yvonne Robinson Ford asking the public for patience in what she called a long process. DeSoto County has about 2,100 affidavit ballots and a count tentatively set for 10 November.

What about Alaska and the rest of the Senate?

The other open seat is Alaska, where Democrat Mary Peltola led Senator Dan Sullivan by 637 votes on the state's latest unofficial first-choice count, Newsweek reported, with ranked-choice tabulation and the slow absentee count likely to run until 18 November. A Justice Department lawsuit over a namesake candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who took about 3,600 votes, was dismissed by a federal judge before election day and is on appeal.

With Democrats already holding a majority, neither race decides control, but they will set the size of it. The next fixed date is 10 November, when Mississippi's mail and affidavit deadlines pass, with the state party having said court challenges are possible.