With the outcome of Mississippi’s U.S. Senate election between Democrat Scott Colom and U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith hinging on the results of affidavit ballots, the Mississippi Free Press is working to find out how many affidavit ballots each county has uncounted.

We have the following affadavit ballot totals from several counties in North Mississippi and the Golden Triangle:

Clay County: 248
Lee County: 1,545
Lowndes Coutny: 550
Noxubee County: 75
Oktibbeha County: ~900

Colom currently leads in all counties, except for Lee, where Hyde-Smith leads 58%-40%.

It is not clear how many, if any, affidavit ballots have been counted thus far in each county.

Totals reported by the Commercial Dispatch, except for Lee County, which MS Live Weather reported.

Award-winning News Editor Ashton Pittman, a native of the South Mississippi Pine Belt, studied journalism and political science at the University of Southern Mississippi. Previously the state reporter at the Jackson Free Press, he drove national headlines and conversations with award-winning reporting about segregation academies. He has won numerous awards, including Outstanding New Journalist in the South, for his work covering immigration raids, abortion battles and even former Gov. Phil Bryant’s unusual work with “The Bad Boys of Brexit" at the Jackson Free Press. In 2021, as a Mississippi Free Press reporter, he was named the Diamond Journalist of the Year for seven southern U.S. states in the Society of Professional Journalists Diamond Awards. A trained photojournalist, Ashton lives in South Mississippi with his husband, William, and their two pit bulls, Dorothy and Dru.

State Reporter Heather Harrison has won more than a dozen awards for her multi-media journalism work. At Mississippi State University, she studied public relations and broadcast journalism, earning her Communication degree in 2023. For three years, Heather worked at The Reflector student newspaper: first as a staff reporter, then as the news editor and finally, as the editor-in-chief. This is where her passion for politics and government reporting began.
Heather started working at the Mississippi Free Press three days after graduation in 2023. She also worked part time for Starkville Daily News after college covering the Board of Aldermen meetings.
In her free time, Heather likes to sit on the porch, read books and listen to Taylor Swift. A native of Hazlehurst, she now lives in Brandon with her wife and their Boston Terrier, Finley, and calico cat, Ravioli.