Cindy Hyde-Smith Voting Rights Election Denial Mississippi

Cindy Hyde-Smith's Lawyers Demanded That All 82 Mississippi Counties Set Affidavit Ballots Apart. She Was Trailing by 1,764 Votes.

With Scott Colom ahead and thousands of ballots still out, Cindy Hyde-Smith's lawyers told every county in Mississippi to keep affidavit ballots in a separate pile. Colom's lawyer says state law doesn't allow that and that it could tie a ballot to the person who cast it.

MAGA Report Cards · Nov 06, 2026

Cindy Hyde-Smith's Lawyers Demanded That All 82 Mississippi Counties Set Affidavit Ballots Apart. She Was Trailing by 1,764 Votes. — Photo: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Mississippi still doesn't know who won its U.S. Senate race. On Thursday, Democrat Scott Colom led Cindy Hyde-Smith by 1,764 votes, with 96% of the vote counted.

The ballots that could settle it are called affidavit ballots. A voter casts one when something about their eligibility has to be checked first. The ballot goes in a sealed envelope with the voter's signed statement, and county election officials decide whether it counts.

That same Thursday, Hyde-Smith's lawyers went after exactly those ballots.

The letter to all 82 counties

The letter is addressed to the election commissioners and circuit clerks of every county in the state. It is posted on the website of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP's campaign arm. Its first line says who it speaks for: "We represent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith."

It demands that each county keep all affidavit ballots "separate and apart" from other ballots through the count and certification. That means accepted ballots too, not just the ones still in dispute. The lawyers say the ballots are "potential evidence" in a later fight, including a "proceeding before the United States Senate." The letter adds that this must not "delay lawful tabulation, prevent the counting of any legally cast ballot, or compromise ballot secrecy."

The campaign gave counties until 5 p.m. Thursday to say whether those steps were in place. Neither side's letter announces a lawsuit.

Think about what that demand does. Hyde-Smith is behind. The ballots left to count include thousands of affidavit ballots. And she is asking for that one group of voters to be set aside and kept ready for a legal challenge.

Colom, for his part, says affidavit votes usually help Democrats in Mississippi. "The affidavit (vote) is always moving in Democratic favor in Mississippi," he said.

Colom's lawyer says the law doesn't allow it

Jacquelyn Lopez, a lawyer for the Colom campaign, wrote back to the same county officials. She said Mississippi law doesn't let counties keep accepted affidavit ballots apart once they've been processed, and that doing so could connect a ballot to the voter who cast it.

"There is no basis whatsoever in Mississippi law for creating or maintaining records that would allow any accepted ballot to be linked to any particular voter's identity," Lopez wrote. "Doing so would violate voters' constitutional rights."

She also argued that counties shouldn't change how they handle ballots after counting has started, because voters in different counties could end up treated differently. And she said Mississippi law has no election contest process for a U.S. Senate race at all.

A former state elections official raised a different problem. Kyle Kirkpatrick, who used to run the elections division at the secretary of state's office, questioned how useful the exercise would be. Once affidavit ballots are scanned, he said on social media, it is "impossible to determine" which voter a ballot belonged to.

Colom's campaign manager, Gerard Henderson, was blunter. "This desperate stunt from national Republicans is what you do when you know you're about to lose a race," he said.

'Fight like hell,' without evidence

The same day, Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst held a press conference and vowed to "fight like hell" so that only "legally cast" ballots get counted.

"Let me be clear: This race is far from being over," he said.

Hurst said Republicans estimate there could be about 20,000 ballots still out. He also claimed that the areas with a large number of outstanding affidavit ballots are traditionally Republican. Mississippi Today reported that he said so without providing evidence, and that he declined to name the counties.

He was more willing to name a county he might sue. Hurst pointed to Hinds County, the state's largest county and a Democratic stronghold, as a likely target. "It's no surprise that this is a traditionally Democratic county," he said, adding that its election commission "has had a number of issues in the past."

Mississippi has no automatic recount. A campaign or party would have to sue, and because there is no statewide process for challenging ballots, those fights happen county by county. Mississippi Today warned it could be "a disjointed, chaotic process."

A pattern with this opponent

This isn't the first time Hyde-Smith has reached for procedure against Scott Colom. She used a Senate tradition with Jim Crow-era roots to block him from a federal judgeship, and now he is on her ballot. In September her campaign launched a website built to look like his.

Now the count is close, and her lawyers are going after one kind of ballot.

The bottom line

With 96% of the vote counted, Cindy Hyde-Smith trailed Scott Colom by 1,764 votes. Her lawyers demanded that all 82 Mississippi counties keep every affidavit ballot separate, including accepted ones, for possible use in a legal fight. Colom's lawyer says state law doesn't allow it and that it could link ballots to voters. The state party chairman claimed, without offering evidence, that many outstanding ballots sit in Republican areas, and named a Democratic county as a likely target for a lawsuit.