LIVE: Mississippi Senate race heads toward ballot fight
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Mississippi’s Senate race is nail-bitingly close — and the legal and political battle over the count has already kicked off.
The GOP’s strategy? Pushing to get as many Democratic votes as possible thrown out.
Democracy Docket reporter Jacob Knutson is on the ground in Jackson, with up-to-the-minute news on the fight to make sure Magnolia State voters’ ballots — and voices — are protected.
Follow Jacob’s updates, along with those from the rest of our team, below.
And stay ahead of every lawsuit, ruling and fight over the ballot. Subscribe to Daily Docket and never miss a step.
5:00pm EST
Colom maintains narrow lead over Hyde-Smith as vote count continues
Democrat Scott Colom leads Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) by 1,822 votes in Mississippi’s closely contested U.S. Senate race, according to AP.
The margin has fluctuated as additional results come in. Colom previously led by 1,724 votes earlier in the afternoon.
4:30 pm EST
NAACP deploys legal teams to Mississippi
The NAACP has deployed 23 national staff members across Jackson and Biloxi to help Mississippi voters navigate provisional ballot requirements and ensure eligible votes are counted in the state’s closely contested Senate race.
“Black voters in Mississippi did everything right. They registered, turned out, stood in line, and cast their ballots. Now the process has to do its part,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson, a Jackson resident, said in a statement. “Our field and legal teams are working around the clock in Mississippi to make sure voters who used provisional ballots are counted,” Johnson added. “With margins this thin, this is what we mean when we say every vote counts.”
4:05 PM EST
GOP letter a ‘desperate stunt,’ says Colom campaign
The Colom campaign has responded to the GOP’s letter demanding Mississippi election officials separate and preserve all affidavit ballots — a likely first step to challenging votes.
“This desperate stunt from national Republicans is what you do when you know you’re about to lose a race,” the campaign said. “We’re confident that when every lawful ballot is counted, Scott Colom will be Mississippi’s next U.S. senator.”
4:00 pm EST
Hyde-Smith predicts victory
Shortly after Mississippi GOP Chairman Mike Hurst held a press conference outlining Republicans’ plans to scrutinize thousands of outstanding ballots in the state’s closely contested Senate race, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) declared that she would win reelection.
3:51 pM EST
Latest update outside the courthouse in Hinds County, Mississippi
3:33 pm EST
Reading between the lines
When Hurst says the party will “fight like hell to make sure that every legal vote that was cast is counted,” pay attention to the “legal” part. Also note his comment that “we don’t know if [election officials] are going to follow the law.”
It’s a signal, if one were needed, that the core of the Republican effort will in fact be aimed at throwing out votes it claims aren’t legal, and are thought to have been cast by Democrats. That’s what the battle will be over.
3:30 PM EST
GOP casts doubt on election counting
“We believe if the laws are followed to a T, and these 20,000 outstanding ballots are counted, that Senator [Cindy Hyde-Smith] will be reelected,” Hurst said.
“Let me be clear. There is no election denying going on. If the laws are followed and the voters spoke, that is it. And Mississippi Republicans will accept that,” Hurst said.
However, he added, “We’ve never seen this volume of affidavit ballots around this state, and so we don’t know how election officials are going to process these. We don’t know if they’re going to follow the law.”
3:26 PM EST
‘Abnormal’ number of affidavit ballots
“We believe that there are approximately 17,000 outstanding affidavit ballots and over 3,000 outstanding mail-in ballots. That’s where we came up with, again, an approximation of 20,000 outstanding and uncounted ballots,” Hurst said.
“To my knowledge, that is very abnormal in any race that we’ve seen in Mississippi’s history,” Hurst said of the estimated 17,000 affidavit ballots. Asked whether that was higher than normal, he responded, “Very much higher than normal. Yes.”
More than 100 precincts were changed or closed in Mississippi this year, leading to more people casting affidavit ballots, according to pro-voting group Mississippi Votes. Voters have until Nov. 10 to ensure their ballot has been cured and their vote counted.
3:20 PM EST
‘Every legal vote’
“We at the Mississippi Republican Party are going to fight like hell to make sure that every legal vote that was cast is counted,” Hurst said.
Republicans on Thursday sent a letter to Mississippi election officials demanding they preserve all ballots and election records, which could be the first step in a bid to challenge individual voters’ ballots.
“We at the Mississippi Republican Party will be watching this process closely, county by county, every single county, specifically examining the results and the procedures that produce those results before that certification is complete,” Hurst said.
3:15 PM EST
Republicans promise ‘to act swiftly’ on legal challenges
“If the facts show that our laws were not followed, we will be ready to act swiftly, and we will not hesitate to hold election officials accountable,” Hurst added. “We will be prepared if and when we find evidence the law has been violated.”
3:13 PM EST
20,000 ballots left to count
“Right now, we estimate that there could be approximately 20,000 outstanding ballots left to be counted. That includes mail-in or absentee ballots and affidavit or provisional ballots,” Mike Hurst, Mississippi GOP chairman and RNC general counsel, said at the press conference.
2:55 PM EST
Getting ready
Here’s the scene outside the Hinds County Courthouse as the media gets set for the Republicans’ press conference:
2:42 pm EST
GOP kicks off bid to throw out votes in Mississippi Senate race
The Republican Party is demanding that Mississippi election officials “segregate and preserve” all provisional ballots cast in the midterms — the first step in a likely bid to throw out votes in the state’s extremely close U.S. Senate race.
2:38 pm EST
Thousands of Mississippi voters need their ballots ‘cured.’ Here’s how the process works
Democrat Scott Colom’s extremely narrow lead over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s closely-watched Senate race means the victor could be decided by a handful of ballots that have currently been set aside for various technical deficiencies.
There were an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 affidavit ballots left to be counted as of Wednesday evening. Errors on ballots are routine and can often be corrected through a process known as curing.
2:35 pm EST
Mississippi made thousands of valid voters inactive ahead of critical Senate race
Thousands of Mississippians whose votes may decide a critical U.S. Senate race, in which Democrat Scott Colom holds a slim lead over Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) are still waiting to have their ballots counted. That’s because of the Republican secretary of state’s contract with Experian, a global credit reporting agency whose data has been described as riddled with errors, that threw thousands of voters into “inactive” status in the months leading up to the general election.