Republicans sent a legal notice to Mississippi’s 82 counties demanding local officials preserve any provisional midterm ballots as incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith trails Democrat Scott Colom by fewer than 2,000 votes.
The unexpectedly tight race has dragged into a third day of vote-counting, and Republicans’ request to segregate provisional ballots comes as both parties prepare to work around the state’s unusual recount laws.
Attorneys from Lex Politica, a law firm that represents Republican campaign infrastructure and candidates including Hyde-Smith, asked Mississippi officials to preserve the ballot affidavits submitted by people whose eligibility cannot be verified when they cast their votes. Election officials must later review their information to determine whether their ballot counts in the election.
“Each county must maintain these ballots and their associated records separate and apart from other 2026 general election ballots throughout the duration of the canvass, certification, and completion of the election process, as required by Mississippi and federal law,” the Thursday letter says.
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The notice also calls on Mississippi election officials — including county election commissioners and circuit clerks — to keep the ballots in question in an “unaltered and identifiable state” and separate them from all regular and absentee ballots, preserving any and all associated materials.
Mississippi is one of the few states that does not allow candidates to demand a recount. A decision could be challenged by including or excluding certain ballots to adjust vote totals outside of a formal “recount” process, according to state law.
“As the democratic process continues to play out, we are committed to ensuring that every single lawful ballot is accurately counted and the voices of all Mississippians are heard,” National Republican Senatorial Committee regional press secretary Samantha Cantrell said in a statement.
Colom’s campaign described the letter as a “desperate stunt from national Republicans,” saying sending them out “is what you do when you know you’re about to lose a race.”
“We’re confident that when every lawful ballot is counted, Scott Colom will be Mississippi’s next U.S. senator,” the statement says.
Mississippi’s surprisingly close Senate race has sent shock waves through both Democratic and Republican leadership. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer deployed officials from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to the state this week. And the NRSC added Hyde-Smith as a joint fund participant to its newly registered recount fund on Wednesday — an effort that also includes Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who is similarly awaiting results in a tight race currently led by Mary Peltola.
Mike Hurst, the chairman of the Republican Party of Mississippi, on Thursday expressed confidence in Hyde-Smith’s chances of keeping her Senate seat, but he confirmed that the state party is committed to ensuring that every qualified ballot is counted.
“We at the Mississippi Republican Party are going to fight like hell to make sure that every legal vote that was passed is counted and that the process to review and process and count these ballots is legal. Period,” Hurst said during a news conference.
Hurst estimated more than 20,000 ballots remain outstanding, including about 17,000 outstanding affidavit ballots and more than 3,000 outstanding mail-in ballots that were postmarked by election day.
He also said he believes the number of provisional ballots is “very much higher than normal” — though he affirmed that the state party is not trying to deny the results of the election, but rather ensure that all laws have been followed throughout the ballot counting process.
“Any time you have an election that’s this close, and anytime we want to make sure that our law is being followed,” Hurst told reporters, “we want to make sure that there is nothing untoward done, that there is no evidence that is destroyed either accidentally or on purpose, and to make sure that we get to the bottom of what exactly happened.”
The deadline for Mississippi counties to submit their certified election results is Nov. 13.
If Colom is elected, he would be the first Democratic senator to represent Mississippi since 1989 and the first Black senator since the Reconstruction Era. Hyde-Smith has served in the Senate since 2018, when Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant appointed her to fill a vacant seat. She won her first full Senate term in 2020.
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