JACKSON, Miss. — Hinds County — Mississippi’s second-most populous county and a Democratic stronghold — rejected two-thirds of the affidavit ballots cast last week in the state’s midterm elections, it announced Wednesday morning.
The affidavit ballots the county accepted — which have not yet been counted — will help determine the outcome of Mississippi’s tight U.S. Senate race between Democrat Scott Colom and incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R).* Colom currently leads by just over 3,000 votes in an extremely close race.
Hinds County, where Jackson lives, accepted only 817 of 2,426 ballots, or about 34% of the ballots cast, election commissioners said at a news conference. Most of these ballots were likely rejected due to improper registration and votes cast in the wrong precinct.
The county’s rejection rate appears to be significantly higher than the state’s rate. In a social media post Tuesday afternoon, Secretary of State Michael Watson (R) said about 76% of Mississippi’s affidavit ballots were accepted.
The affidavit ballots accepted by Hinds County have not yet been counted. Members of the resolution board – made up of residents from across the county – were opening and counting ballots throughout Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of Mississippians had to vote by affidavit — that is, provisionally — after the state marked them as “inactive” voters following a change in its procedures for maintaining voter rolls.
Mississippi has one of the most restrictive voting systems in the United States. Missing is no-excuse absentee voting, early voting, and same-day and online registration — common practices in many other states with pro-voting policies.
For these reasons, Jacqueline Amos, a Democratic National Committee representative from Mississippi, said the refusals were not unexpected.
“I wasn’t surprised because on Tuesday there were … many phone calls from voters complaining about not being able to vote,” she told Democracy Docket. “And as the day went on, it became more and more apparent that we were going to have a lot of rejected affidavits. »
But Kidada Brown, the county’s District 1 elections commissioner, said she didn’t expect so many rejections.
“It’s a significant amount of money,” she said, “and I’m surprised because a lot of people voted in the wrong district.”
In Mississippi, ballots cast in the wrong precinct are not counted and cannot be fixed.
Brown also noted that some sworn voters — particularly at Jackson State University and Tougaloo College — were ultimately found not to be registered voters. She suggested that they had participated in voter registration drives and left falsely believing that they were now registered to vote.
Mississippi requires voters to register through paper applications that they must mail or deliver to county clerks’ offices at least 30 days before an election.
Yesterday, Watson announced that 76 of Mississippi’s 82 counties had uploaded uncertified results and four counties had reported certified results.
State law requires all counties to upload their certified results by Friday.
Zachary Wallace, the Hinds County precinct clerk, said the county hopes to certify its election results Wednesday.
This is a developing story. Check back later for more information.
*The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and is active in the legal effort on behalf of the Colom campaign. Marc Elias, president of ELG, is the founder of Democracy Docket.
Gn headline
