Right now, we estimate that there could be approximately 20,000 outstanding ballots left to be counted.
That is Mike Hurst, chair of the Mississippi Republican Party, speaking Thursday, and it is the number the Senate race now turns on.
Democrat Scott Colom leads Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 2,574 votes with about 97 percent counted and no call from the AP, according to Yahoo News. The margin was 1,764 on Thursday, reached 2,574 on Friday night, and was still 2,574 on Monday.
Tuesday is the last day for late mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive, and until 5 p.m. it is the last day for affidavit voters to bring the ID that cures their ballots. The Supreme Court settled the mail-ballot question in June, when it ruled in Watson v. RNC that states may count ballots that arrive after Election Day, in a case that came from Mississippi’s own five-day rule. County clerks have until Friday, November 13, to certify.
What Hyde-Smith Would Need
Here is how to read Hurst’s number. Take all 20,000 at face value, assume every one is lawful and gets counted, and Hyde-Smith still has to win 56.4 percent of them to pass Colom.
If the real pile is 10,000, she needs 62.9 percent. If it is only the 3,000-plus late mail ballots Secretary of State Michael Watson cited, she needs 92.9 percent.
The formula is her 2,574-vote gap plus the pile, divided by twice the pile. These are ceilings, because they assume nothing gets rejected and every ballot is cast for one of the two.
Hurst said the outstanding ballots sit in Republican-leaning areas, offered no evidence, and declined to name the counties. The ballots counted since Thursday went the other way: Colom gained 810 votes between Thursday and Friday night.
Republicans are building the other route. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has asked circuit clerks to set aside affidavit ballots, and Colom lawyer Jacquelyn Lopez answered that Mississippi law offers “no basis whatsoever” for records that tie an accepted ballot to a voter. Mississippi has no automatic recount law, so a court would have to order one, and Hurst has pointed to Hinds County as a likely place to sue.
We think the arithmetic explains the strategy. Unless the outstanding pile is heavily Republican, which Hurst has asserted and not shown, the only road to a Hyde-Smith win runs through knocking out lawful ballots. Count every lawful vote, and if Colom’s lead holds, he wins.
Hurst has said he would accept a lawful Colom victory, and that is the commitment to hold him to. We first reported Colom’s lead at 1,138 votes, and it has more than doubled since.