Final results in Mississippi U.S. Senate race incoming with ballot deadlines passed

Voters' last chance to verify their affidavit ballot was Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. Election commissioners will now move into the final stages of processing and counting mail-in and affidavit ballots to be certified.

Mississippi has been on the forefront of national attention in a high-stakes Senate race between Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Scott Colom. 

In a Tuesday Facebook post, Secretary of State Michael Watson says over 18,000 affidavit ballots have been processed so far. 

"We've got 76 counties that have uploaded uncertified results, we've got four counties that have now certified their results," Watson said. "And again, these counties have had ten days to do that."

Hinds County, where many of the outstanding ballots remain, is likely to complete its count to turn over to the Secretary of State today. 

Tonya Rivers is an election commissioner in Rankin County.  She said the office processed over 1,600 affidavits. Rivers said the state's use of Experian to clean up voter rolls contributed to the slow process because thousands of voters were designated inactive and purged from the rolls.  

"I've been here 13 years and every election it seems like the spotlight grows bigger on elections and election officials," Rivers said. "This year was no exception and the Senate race created a much bigger turnout than we've ever had on a midterm."

"All of these things combined, it was like the perfect storm for a crazy election."

Elizabeth Jonson, with the Secretary of State's office, says Mississippians can track their affidavit ballots through the Secretary of State's website.

"You can input your information and as soon as the local election officials have processed your ballot, that information will populate to let you know that the ballot has been processed," Jonson said. 

Jonson argued that claims about voter suppression are "misinformation" and a "misconception". 

"Secretary Michael Watson has registered over 400,000 voters since he's been in office," Jonson said. "The goal here is to maintain clean voter rolls and so the process is working, as he has stated, and his goal is to ensure that votes are cast legally." 

Friday, November 13th at 5:00p.m. is the deadline for counties to submit election results.

Both candidates say that the race is still theirs to win, though. Democrat Scott Colom is still ahead of Republican incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by about 3,100 votes as of Wednesday morning. 

Colom says that's especially as the final ballots come in, challenging Hyde-Smith's assertion that she can still beat him.

"If she thinks she truly has the ability to win, explain how," he said during a press conference on Tuesday. "I'm very confident based on the performance of the ballots in Hinds County on election day, once these affidavit ballots come in from Hinds County, the lead is gonna be insurmountable."

MPB News reached out to Hyde-Smith's team and didn't get a response. But, national media spoke to the Senator in D.C., while walking the halls of the Capitol, with CNN asking her about the race.

"We are still counting votes and there's a few thousand out and we feel confident," Hyde-Smith said, adding that Colom could "say anything he wants" about her chances of victory. 

Her comments to the media this Tuesday are the first she's made since election night, outside of a handful of social media posts.

Friday is the deadline for local election officials to send results to the Secretary of State's Office. Volunteers and lawyers for both candidates are monitoring ballot counting and litigation could come after results are announced. 

Colom, on Tuesday, also highlighted the issues voters have faced during the election. In particular was the Secretary of State opting to use data from consumer reporting company, Experian, to check voter rolls, which led to high rates of voter inactivations.

"He's pointing the finger at the election commissioners: it was his job to make sure those election commissioners had the information they needed," Colom said. "He decided to use Experian, even though based on the reporting I read from Mississippi Today, Experian told them they weren't reliable."

Colom says other measures, like early voting, need to be implemented to make it easier for voters.

"I think it should be a national holiday on election day, because we need to make sure people are encouraged to vote," Colom said. "That is the most important part of our democracy."

While Colom isn't in D.C. just yet, he answered questions from the press about priorities he would want to tackle first as U.S. Senator. 

"The first thing we've got to do, which should be a straightforward thing, is we got get the tariff policy back," Colom said. "We don't need tariff policy that's based on the ego of the president, who he's upset with, his leverage for foreign policy."

Colom highlighted the impact of tariffs on small businesses and farmers especially, adding that ending the war in Iran needs to be top of the list for the same reason.  

"The president promised the American people no more endless wars and we're back at war with no end in sight," he said. "We need to get out of it in a smooth transition so we can get gas down; we can start focusing in on making sure things are affordable."

Health care access and saving rural hospitals has been a major component of Colom's platform, which he said needs to be addressed in Washington as well. 

"These subsidies for people who were getting federal support for the Affordable Care Act went away and a lot of people in Mississippi lost health insurance as a result of that," he said. "Next year, because of the Medicaid cuts, people are going to lose health insurance."

"The third thing we've got to do is focus in on making sure health care is affordable and accessible and finding options to make sure that every child of God has access to health."