Hyde-Smith Campaign Demands All 82 Mississippi Counties Separate and Preserve Affidavit Ballots
By Jon Myers
JACKSON, Miss. — With the U.S. Senate race still uncalled, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s campaign has sent a formal demand to election officials in all 82 Mississippi counties to separate, secure and preserve every affidavit ballot cast in the November 3, 2026 general election.
The letter, dated Thursday, November 5, 2026, comes from the law firm Lex Politica, counsel for Cindy Hyde-Smith for U.S. Senate. It was sent by electronic mail and public release to county election commissioners and circuit clerks across the state.
The campaign is demanding that each county maintain affidavit ballots and their original envelopes as a distinct group, separate and apart from all other ballots from the 2026 general election — including accepted, rejected, unresolved and cured affidavit ballots — through the canvass, certification and completion of the election process.
“These measures are necessary to ensure that each affidavit ballot’s eligibility for counting and ultimate disposition can be verified,” the letter states.
The letter asks counties to do three things:
- Maintain all affidavit ballots separately from regular and absentee ballots, secured and preserved with their original envelopes as a distinct group.
- Document each ballot’s disposition, including whether it was accepted or rejected, its unresolved status, the basis for the determination and any timely cure — recording the date and time each cure document is received, and entering the required information in the Statewide Elections Management System, including the reasons ballots were issued and the numbers counted and not counted.
- Preserve all associated materials and custody records, including affidavit envelopes, separate receipt books, eligibility-review and cure records, pollbooks and electronic pollbook data, Statewide Elections Management System entries and audit logs, tabulator tapes and memory devices, resolution-board and duplication records, election commission minutes, communications with the Secretary of State, video recordings of ballot storage areas and records documenting transfer, access and custody. The letter directs counties not to overwrite, purge or reformat any electronic data.
Each county is asked to confirm receipt and advise the campaign’s Hannah Streitman by 5:00 p.m. Central Time today, November 5, whether the requested safeguards are in place — and if any are not, to identify the outstanding measures and the anticipated time for implementation. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson was copied on the letter.
The campaign argues the ballots are potential evidence in any ballot-box examination, election contest or proceeding before the United States Senate, and says Hyde-Smith is entitled to their preservation “in an unaltered and identifiable state.”
The letter does not allege fraud or any specific irregularity. It states that implementation “must not delay lawful tabulation, prevent the counting of any legally cast ballot, or compromise ballot secrecy,” and notes that federal law independently requires covered federal-election records to be retained for 22 months from the date of the election.
The demand lands in a race that remains too close to call. The latest Associated Press figures from Wednesday evening showed Democrat Scott Colom leading Hyde-Smith by just over 1,100 votes out of nearly 949,000 cast. The Colom campaign has estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 affidavit ballots remain outstanding statewide — a campaign estimate, not an official count. The Secretary of State’s office has said more than 3,600 absentee mail ballots had not been returned.
Hyde-Smith campaign manager Jake Monssen said Wednesday the campaign is watching the remaining count closely.
“We have thousands of outstanding ballots, including affidavit and absentee ballots, which still must be processed and verified under Mississippi law,” Monssen said. “We remain confident that when every legally cast vote is fully and accurately counted, Mississippians will have reelected Cindy Hyde-Smith.”
Affidavit ballots are Mississippi’s version of provisional ballots. They are cast when a voter’s name is not on the rolls or the voter lacks an acceptable photo ID, and each one is reviewed after Election Day to determine whether it may lawfully be counted. Voters who cast an affidavit ballot because they lacked photo ID have until 5 p.m. Tuesday, November 10, to show an acceptable ID at their circuit clerk’s office or complete an affidavit of religious objection. Mail-in absentee ballots must also reach the circuit clerk by 5 p.m. November 10.
Not every affidavit ballot is counted. In 2022, Mississippi voters cast 7,612 affidavit ballots, and officials counted 5,710 of them, according to the Associated Press.
Counties must certify their results by November 13, and the Secretary of State is scheduled to declare the results on December 3.
