If the Senate race in Mississippi remains nail-bitingly close, it could quickly turn into an unusual, freewheeling legal and political dispute.
Mississippi, unlike most other states, has no provision for recounts, as University of Notre Dame election law professor Derek Muller noted in a blog post Wednesday.
A candidate who comes out behind by a thin margin and wants to challenge the tally could file a lawsuit to try to count or invalidate certain ballots. They also could ask the Senate to decide who should be seated.
So far, Democrat Scott Colom leads Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 1,724 votes, according to unofficial results as of early Thursday afternoon. More votes will be counted in coming days as election officials process provisional ballots and late-arriving mail ballots.
Provisional ballots, known as affidavit ballots in Mississippi, are cast when there is an issue with a voter’s ID or registration status. Colom’s campaign estimated late Tuesday that there were 10,000 to 15,000 outstanding affidavit ballots, according to Mississippi Today.
Election officials in Mississippi count mail ballots that arrive within five days of Election Day as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. There are about 3,600 mail ballots that have not yet been returned, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Both campaigns are preparing for a drawn-out count. Colom said Wednesday that his campaign had sent lawyers across the state to monitor local officials as they process the remaining ballots. Hyde-Smith’s campaign said in a statement that it expects she will be reelected once every legally cast vote is counted.
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