Hyde-Smith’s Lawyers Told All 82 Counties to Lock Affidavit Ballots. Up to 20,000 Are Still Out.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s lawyers sent every Mississippi county the same demand on Thursday: separate, secure and preserve every affidavit ballot from Tuesday’s election — accepted, rejected, unresolved and cured — and keep the records intact.

The letter went to election commissioners and circuit clerks in all 82 counties. It was signed by Jessica Furst Johnson, Eric Wang and Nadin Linthorst of Lex Politica “Counsel for Cindy Hyde-Smith for U.S. Senate,” and carbon-copied to Secretary of State Michael Watson. Counties were told to confirm the safeguards by 5 p.m. Central Time on Nov. 5.

That demand landed while Democrat Scott Colom still led the Republican incumbent by roughly 1,800 votes with ballots still out. In the Associated Press tally Thursday evening, Colom had 466,775 votes (49.04%) to Hyde-Smith’s 464,962 (48.85%) — a gap of 1,813 with about 96% of expected ballots in. The race was still uncalled.

What the letter demands

The Nov. 5 demand letter is not a courtesy memo. It orders each county to:

1. Keep all affidavit ballots and original envelopes as a distinct group, separate from regular and absentee ballots.

2. Document every disposition — accepted, rejected or unresolved — and preserve voter-ID cure paperwork with date and time stamps under Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-573.

3. Retain the associated materials and custody trail: receipt books, pollbooks, Statewide Elections Management System entries and audit logs, tabulator tapes and memory devices, resolution-board records, commission minutes, storage-area video, and transfer logs. “Do not overwrite, purge, or reformat any electronic data.”

The lawyers cite Miss. Code Ann. § 23-15-573 on how affidavit envelopes must be sealed and reviewed, and § 23-15-911 on ballot-box examination after the election. They also put counties on federal notice: covered federal-election records must be retained for 22 months under 52 U.S.C. § 20701. “Candidate Hyde-Smith is entitled to their preservation in an unaltered and identifiable state,” the letter says.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee released the letter the same day. “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,” NRSC Regional Press Secretary Samantha Cantrell said.

Tens of thousands still out

The size of the pile is the point. Mississippi Today reported Thursday that voting-rights attorney Lisa Ross, who is monitoring the remaining count, put outstanding affidavit ballots statewide at 14,000 to 18,000. Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst told reporters Thursday afternoon that Republicans believe there could be as many as 20,000 outstanding ballots once mail-ins, absentees and affidavits are counted together. Watson said Wednesday that about 3,600 outstanding absentee-by-mail ballots could still be processed if they arrive by the statutory Nov. 10 deadline.

Affidavit ballots in Mississippi are the state’s provisional ballots. Under state law, each one comes sealed in an envelope with a signed voter affidavit, gets logged in a separate receipt book, and only counts after election commissioners check the records. That is exactly the stack Hyde-Smith’s lawyers want kept apart from the rest of the canvass.

At a Thursday press conference outside the Hinds County Courthouse, Hurst called the letter standard procedure for a race this close. The party’s main goal, he said, is making sure the law is followed and that no evidence is destroyed — accidentally or on purpose.

Colom’s campaign manager, Gerard Henderson, answered the same afternoon. “This desperate stunt from national Republicans is what you do when you know you’re about to lose a race,” Henderson said, per WLOX. “We’re confident that when every lawful ballot is counted, Scott Colom will be Mississippi’s next U.S. senator.”

Colom himself was already talking about which way that stack moves. At a Jackson breakfast Thursday morning, he told volunteers, “Anybody out there that does an analysis knows where this is going. The affidavit (vote) is always moving in Democratic favor in Mississippi.” He added that looking at the ballots left, “it’s going in our favor, absolutely.”

Lawyers on both sides

Democratic election lawyers are already on the ground. Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo said her group is working to “defend the will of the people” and that Colom is ahead. Mississippi Today reported that Fair Fight, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and attorneys from Elias Law Group have deployed hundreds of volunteers and local lawyers across all 82 counties to watch the remaining count. Early Wednesday, before the race was called, Marc Elias posted that “Scott Colom is going to be the next Senator from Mississippi” and that his firm was “leading the legal effort to ensure that happens.”

Mississippi has no automatic recount. A recount happens only if a court orders one after a lawsuit against a county or county election commission. After certification, campaigns can run ballot-box examinations under § 23-15-911 and use that evidence in an election contest — or, for a U.S. Senate seat, before the United States Senate itself. Hyde-Smith’s letter is the document trail for that fight: every affidavit envelope, every cure, every rejection reason, kept separate and unaltered.

Hinds County, the state’s largest Democratic stronghold, still had about 10% of its vote uncounted in the Associated Press feed Thursday, with officials saying the remaining absentee and affidavit review will take days. Ballots also remained in Gulf Coast counties and in Rankin County — Hyde-Smith country. Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day can keep arriving through Nov. 10 under the Mississippi law the Republican National Committee fought to the Supreme Court and lost.

So the picture on Thursday night was simple. One Democrat led a deep-red Senate seat by about 1,800 votes. Up to 20,000 provisional-style ballots were still in play. Colom said those affidavits break his way. Hyde-Smith’s lawyers told every county in the state to lock them down first.