‘Protect the will of the voters’: Mississippi’s Scott Colom lays out pro-voting agenda in exclusive interview

JACKSON, Miss. — Democrat Scott Colom, who holds a razor-thin lead in Mississippi’s still-undecided U.S. Senate race, called for sweeping reforms to expand voting access and curb partisan gerrymandering in an interview with Democracy Docket Friday.

Speaking as election officials continue counting thousands of outstanding ballots in his race against incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R), Colom said he wants Mississippi to adopt three weeks of early voting, make Election Day a national holiday and end the practice of drawing electoral districts to benefit political parties.

“We need to empower the voters to pick their leaders and not the leaders to pick the voters that matter,” Colom told Democracy Docket.

Colom said partisan gerrymandering encourages politicians to focus on winning primaries rather than appealing to a broader electorate, making it harder to find bipartisan solutions.

“The other thing about partisan gerrymandering, it’s not about helping the voters, it’s about helping the political parties,” he said.

Colom also proposed expanding ballot access in Mississippi, where voters do not have access to traditional in-person early voting.

“I believe in early voting, we need to make sure in places like Mississippi, we have three weeks of early voting,” he said. “I think there needs to be a national holiday on election day, because we need to make sure people that work have easy access to the ballot.”

“One of the most important things we can do in our country is protect the ballot and make it easy for people to exercise their right,” he added.

Colom’s proposed reforms come as he remains locked in one of the country’s closest and most-watched Senate races.

As of Friday afternoon, Colom led Hyde-Smith by 2,009 votes, according to the Associated Press. Neither candidate has been declared the winner.

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson estimated Thursday that between 12,000 and 20,000 affidavit ballots — the state’s equivalent of provisional ballots — remained uncounted. Those ballots require additional eligibility checks before they can be included in the final tally.

The unresolved contest has also prompted a dispute between the campaigns over how election officials should handle those ballots.

On Thursday, lawyers for Hyde-Smith demanded that election officials in all 82 Mississippi counties preserve and separately maintain affidavit ballots, citing the possibility of future legal challenges.

Colom’s attorneys responded that keeping accepted affidavit ballots separate from other counted votes would violate Mississippi law and threaten ballot secrecy.

Mississippi counties have until Nov. 13 to certify their results.

If Colom wins, he would become Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction and the first Democrat elected to represent the state in the Senate since 1982.

During his interview with Democracy Docket, Colom also weighed in on the Supreme Court’s April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted the Voting Rights Act and made it nearly impossible to challenge district maps that dilute minority voting power.

Colom said the ruling and the broader fight over Black political representation were “a big factor” that helped drive turnout across the South.

He pointed specifically to Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves’ efforts to redraw congressional districts and target the seat held by Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, whose district includes Jackson and much of the Mississippi Delta, both of which are majority Black.

“You mean that the people of Jackson and the people of the Delta don’t get to pick their congressman?” he said, describing the frustration he believes voters felt. “Those voters have the same right to pick their leaders as the voters in Northeast Mississippi, South Mississippi, Southwest, DeSoto County.”

Despite the extraordinarily close margin, Colom expressed confidence in the remaining vote count.

“Anybody that does any type of analysis, I said Wednesday morning, it’s trending in my direction,” he told Democracy Docket. “It was only going to continue to trend in my direction, because I just know how politics works in Mississippi.”

Asked about Mississippi’s lack of an automatic recount process, Colom said his priority was ensuring that the outstanding ballots are handled properly.

“My focus is making sure I have the lawyers, the organizers, and [and that we’re] ready to make sure we protect the process and we protect the will of the voters,” he said.