Mississippi Senate Race: Colom's Lead Grows to 2,129 Votes as His Lawyers Tell Counties to Ignore the Separate-Ballots Demand

Mississippi's Senate count moved for the fourth time on Friday. The Associated Press now counts Democrat Scott Colom at 467,312 votes to Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith's 465,183 - a lead of 2,129 votes, up from 2,010 earlier in the day - with every precinct reporting, an estimated 96.77 percent of the vote counted, and the race still rated too early to call. The remaining paper is the affidavit ballots, and on Thursday night the fight over them became a lawyers' fight.

Jacquelyn Lopez of Elias Law Group, counsel to the Colom campaign, wrote to all 82 Mississippi counties answering the demand - sent Thursday by Lex Politica for the Hyde-Smith campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee - that affidavit ballots be kept separate from regular and absentee ballots. Lopez called the demand 'unlawful and extraordinary' and wrote that Hyde-Smith 'cites no legal authority whatsoever. That is because there is no legal authority for that demand.' Following it, she warned, would 'violate Mississippi voters' rights and Mississippi election law.'

Her argument ran to the secret ballot itself. Pulling accepted affidavit ballots back out of the pile, Lopez wrote, raises 'the danger that a voter's identity could be linked to their ballot' - and because many counties have already finished counting the normal way, changing the rules now in only some counties would treat voters unequally, the Bush v. Gore problem turned against the side usually citing it. She also noted that Mississippi law does not allow an election contest in a federal race, which undercuts the ballot-preservation statute the demand relied on. Her instruction to county officials was blunt: 'Do not segregate accepted affidavit ballots from other paper ballots. And certainly do not do anything that would allow a particular ballot to be traced to a particular voter.' The Colom campaign called the Republican letter a 'desperate stunt'; Hyde-Smith said on X that thousands of votes are still out in Republican counties.

The clock is now the story. Voters who cast affidavit ballots without photo ID have until November 10 to show it at their circuit clerk's office; counties must certify by November 13; and Mississippi has no formal recount process, so any challenge after certification goes to court. Democrats have already clinched the Senate - a Colom win would give them a 55th seat, and would make him the first Black senator Mississippi voters have ever chosen at the ballot box. Until the paper is finished, the closest Senate race in the country stays exactly that: unfinished.