Mississippi’s key Democratic stronghold rejected most affidavit ballots

JACKSON, MISS. — Hinds County — the second most populous county in Mississippi and a Democratic stronghold — rejected two-thirds of affidavit ballots cast last week in the state’s midterm elections, it announced Wednesday morning.

The affidavit ballots the county did accept — which have yet to be counted — will help determine the outcome of Mississippi’s close U.S. Senate race between Democrat Scott Colom and incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R).* Colom currently leads by just over 3,000 votes in an extremely close race.

Hinds County, home to Jackson, accepted just 817 out of 2,426, or roughly 34% of the ballots, election commissioners said during a press conference. Most of those ballots were likely rejected due to improper registration and votes being cast in the wrong precinct.

Tens of thousands of Mississippians had to vote by affidavit — i.e., provisional — ballot after the state marked them as “inactive” voters following a change in its voter list maintenance procedures. 

Mississippi has one of the most restrictive election systems in the United States. It lacks no-excuse mail voting, early voting and same-day and online registration — practices common in many other states with pro-voting policies.

For those reasons, Jacqueline Amos, a Mississippi representative of the Democratic National Committee, said the rejections weren’t unexpected.

“I wasn’t surprised because, on Tuesday, there were… many phone calls from voters complaining that they could not vote,” she told Democracy Docket. “And so as the day went on, it just became more and more evident that we were going to have a lot of rejected affidavits.”

But Kidada Brown, election commissioner for the county’s District 1, said she did not expect so many rejections.

“That’s a large amount,” she said, “and I’m surprised because we had a lot of people that voted in the wrong precinct.”

In Mississippi, ballots cast in the wrong precinct are not counted and cannot be remedied.

Brown also noted that some affidavit voters — particularly at Jackson State University and Tougaloo College — were ultimately found not to be registered to vote. She suggested that they had attended voter registration drives and came away wrongly believing they were now registered to vote. 

Mississippi requires voters to register through paper applications that they must mail or deliver to county clerks’ offices at least 30 days before an election.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) announced that 76 of Mississippi’s 82 counties had uploaded uncertified results and four counties had reported certified results. 

State law requires that all counties upload their certified results by Friday.

This is a developing story. Check back later for more information.

*The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and is active in the legal effort on behalf of the Colom campaign. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.